I don't recall if the directory was originally furnished by the
NPS, or the volunteers. Now, as I recall, there are multiple
err podiums with the list protected by a glass shield.

I don't remember, either. I doubt Maya Lin came up with that solution.
(Maybe she didn't realize there was a problem! She was thinking of the
Wall as something to do with the country, whereas individuals who go
there are often thinking of it as having to do with other individuals,
whose names they know. This will of course be less true as time goes
on. If I went to Normandy, I wouldn't be looking for the grave marker
of any one person.)

I recall only the one directory, on the opposite side from the
statues. (Personally, I find the directory--paper or electronic--less
jarring than the statues, which really don't belong there. I'm with
Lin on that one.)

Her notion of arranging the names by date is actually a very powerful
one, especially to people like me who were in Vietnam (as a civilian,
in my case) early. By happenstance, I recognized the name of a
helicopter gunner, Ted Winowitz, whose name was at eye level where I
stopped, knowing that this was approximately 1964. (He was declared
dead in December, though the helo went down in June.) Looking at the
names above his was a very significant experience, knowing that very
likely I'd run across some others there but didn't know their names.

Incidentally, at least one name is out of order. The first American
serviceman now recognized to have been killed in Vietnam was Capt
Harry Cramer, a Green Beret, in October 1957.
www.warbirdforum.com/vanguard.htm

As the first, there was no room for him, so he had to be tucked in
where there was a blank, which was done in 1987.
all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

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