The Vietnam Memorial Wall

Billy Beck wrote:

That Memorial is *always* the top item on my to-do list whenever
I have a spare moment in Washington.

And I've seen it at every hour of the day, but it is never so
powerful as in the middle of the night.

Billy

http://www.two--four.net/weblog.php

I'll agree with you. It's always on my list.

The most moving visit was just after the dedication. The memorial
sidewalks were not completed. We walked on wooden planking to see the
memorial. It was a foggy night and the city lights disappeared as we
descended towards the center of the wall. Someone was reading the names
on the wall in a measured pace.

All I remember was a disembodied voice

Williams, Charles R
Roberts, Thomas C
Frederichs, Allan P

-----------------

Another moving experience is to walk into Arlington Cemetary from the
visitor's center towards the Tomb of the Unknowns. If the wind is
carrying from the west, you hear the footsteps of the guard for quite a
distance. It drifts over the rows of stones.
--------------

MAH

On Fri, 04 Jun 2004 06:25:26 -0500, mah wrote:

Billy Beck wrote:

That Memorial is *always* the top item on my to-do list whenever
I have a spare moment in Washington.

And I've seen it at every hour of the day, but it is never so
powerful as in the middle of the night.

Billy

http://www.two--four.net/weblog.php

I'll agree with you. It's always on my list.

The most moving visit was just after the dedication. The memorial
sidewalks were not completed. We walked on wooden planking to see the
memorial. It was a foggy night and the city lights disappeared as we
descended towards the center of the wall. Someone was reading the names
on the wall in a measured pace.

All I remember was a disembodied voice

Williams, Charles R
Roberts, Thomas C
Frederichs, Allan P

-----------------

Another moving experience is to walk into Arlington Cemetary from the
visitor's center towards the Tomb of the Unknowns. If the wind is
carrying from the west, you hear the footsteps of the guard for quite a
distance. It drifts over the rows of stones.
--------------

MAH

A visit to the Punch Bowl brings tears to my eyes every time. I used to
go there whenever we were in port at Pearl and when I was "just passin'
through".

Al Minyard

So what do you guys think of the statues?

The first time I was at the Wall, there were no statues. The second
time, the three soldiers. I was there most recently in January, when
presumably the nurse(s?) had been added, but apparently I didn't
notice.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com

In message , Cub Driver
writes

But, the Wall
is black and buried, a depression in the ground symbolizing the
depression of the nation that did not win the war or respect the men
who fought it.

I think you're wrong on this one, Ed. To me the Wall is the most
beautiful and most moving monument anywhere in the world, the only one
I return to, and the only one that ever made me cry.

I will say that the Vietnam memorial didn't have that effect on me. But
then, it wasn't my war, and it's only through here I know folk who
fought there.

That said: it made me pause and scan the names, it made me pause and
respect the fallen, and if I didn't already have a passing acquaintance
with the conflict I'd have sought out more information.

For a foreigner, it did its job. It's a very good monument.

--
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
Julius Caesar I:2

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk

For a foreigner, it did its job.

Maya Lin was born in Athens, Ohio. Can't get more American than that!

She was a student at Yale when she won the Vietnam Memorial
competition.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com

After 30 years have passed since I came home - I still can't go to the
wall without memories and tears.

Jim

"Jim McCartan" wrote in message
om...
After 30 years have passed since I came home - I still can't go to the
wall without memories and tears.

Jim

You have my deepest sympathies. All those lives wasted just to prove that the
"domino theory" we were told was threatening our national existence was
fallacious and untrue.

After all was said and done, the North Vietnamese won the war, we left Viet Nam,
and the horrible Communists did NOT take over all of Asia. We could have let
them take over their country without sacrificing 58,000 American lives, not to
mention the hundreds of thousands of wounded and maimed young Americans and we
wouldn't have been any the worse for it.

Hindsight is wonderful in providing insight, providing one is willing to learn
from it. Those unwilling to learn from it are doomed to repeat the experience.
The current batch of Kerry bashers haven't figured out yet that he was right and
the rest of us who thought at the time that we belonged in that dogfight were
wrong.

George Z.

I think the foreigner he was referring to was himself, not Maya Lin.

"Cub Driver" wrote in message
news

For a foreigner, it did its job.

Maya Lin was born in Athens, Ohio. Can't get more American than that!

She was a student at Yale when she won the Vietnam Memorial
competition.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com