The Wall
The Wall
A Simple Lesson, Oft Forgotten
Looking at the over 58,000 names on this wall can be overwhelming.
This is the memorial to a war that divided America.
There are thousands of books written on that war if you wish to research it.
Nearly 60,000 human beings will never get to read those books.
They did what their country asked of them.
As John Fitzgerald Kennedy said, “Ask not…”
America is divided again. Maybe it has always been divided and the idea of national unity has been the illusion, the mirage.
There is no reason on this day, in this moment, to list where the chasms and the fissures in our nation's soul reside.
In that photo, in that small fragment of that massive structure, you see the varied and diverse names of the citizens who were united in one thing: They asked themselves what they could do for their country.
45 years have passed since the end of that conflict.
The names on the wall did not live to witness that end.
The names on the wall did not live to witness Americans screaming at each other on streets, in stores, and on glowing screens that didn’t exist when their time on this sphere came to a close.
You may have read none of the books written about the conflict in Vietnam, or you may have read hundreds.
You may believe that it was a national travesty that never should have happened or you may believe it was the proper response to a growing threat to global freedom.
You don’t have to agree with anyone else on the subject.
But you must acknowledge that there is a massive granite wall in the middle of a beautiful park in Washington, DC, and etched upon that wall are the names of Americans who asked themselves what they could do for their country and the answer costs them their lives.
It is not too much to ask of you to take a moment out of your family gathering, your internet squabble, your entertainment program binge, and remember them.
Jimmy Doom is the stepson of a veteran of the war in Vietnam. There have been other wars before and since, but none so greatly divided the country in our lifetime, as the one memorialized above.
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