Off The Bean Vine - The Wall for Others, 3 21 04

Since 04-02-04 

March 21  2004

Greetings

Today I opened a mail that asked my opinion about including others on the Wall. In responding to it I was simultaneously angry, grieved, and puzzled, not at the question but at the implications which it raised in my own mind. I decided to offer it to my readers and ask them to think of how they might answer this same question and what it means to each of you. To me, it was an excercise I had not considered and it was enlightening to think about. The question is simple, the answer is not. So, here it is. Read it and consider how you will respond.

THE QUESTION:

What are your thoughts about 'Nam vets honorably discharged and dying in the States due to "war' related  health/injuries not being included on the wall?

MY RESPONSE:

several thoughts really

the Wall was erected as a memorial for those that died in combat in Vietnam during the years in which we were there as a military force, in a way it was a concession to the veterans who survived showing that the nation honors those men and their sacrifice. The nation never officially thanked us or honored us and this memorial represented an effort on thier part to pour oil on troubled waters.

The problem is we vets didnt have the good graces to finish dying while the bullets were still flying but continued to die from injury and illness long after the war was officially ended, long after the Wall was erected, how gauche of us, huh?

Two things come to mind concerning this, first, when the war ended and our enlistments ran out we dispersed to our homes, jobs, lives, and loved ones and the immediacy of the loss of a comrade in battle became "the past". The men who kept on dying from agent orange exposure, complications of diabetes etc werent present, they weren't "in your face" like a man who died right next to you. Every vet that went there can relate easily (and painfully) to this kind of loss while those that died far away and far from memory were neither thought of nor honored save by those who knew them and loved them. It's not that we didnt care about our brothers but they were distant and not immediate and it's easy to feel regret at a distance as opposed to the devastation of seeing someone dead that you knew and worked and fought beside, so it was neither immediate nor important to consider that others hadnt finished dying yet.

Secondly, the Wall is a static structure and aside from minor additions or corrections it is limited by available space to the piece which stands today with those 58,000 names.

If we were to construct an addition to this wall to include all who died from Vietnam it would overwhelm Washington and the surrounding countryside. To start with..where do we draw the line? What about the men who killed themselves? What about the men who fell into the darkness of drugs or alcohol and perished? What about the men who have become mentally ill,maybe even catatonic and unresponsive, for all practical purposes they are dead and still walking around.

Since all the men who went to vietnam are not yet dead, will they have to wait until we have all cashed it in to honor us in some way?

The deaths from vietnam touched not only the soldiers, costing them their lives in the end, but also impacted on parents, children, loved ones. Many of them died as well from broken hearts and broken lives and we have to ask if vietnam wasnt in a major way part of their demise as well?

If we were honest, as a nation, we would put up a massive grey wall across from the one standing now and on it the names of all the ones who died when they came home, soldiers and civilians alike, but as I said..the thing would overrun the city.

The Wall serves as a focal point for our grief and our thoughts about vietnam. It is not complete without ALL the names but frankly, until we have all passed to the far side of the wall it will not be complete, ever. It is better to have half-a-loaf than to have none and maybe thats what this black stone is, half a loaf.

I wish we could honor every single man and woman that went with a memorial to their bravery and their sacrifices but thats not what the Wall commemorates. It commemorates death, death within a very narrow range of years and victims.

So long as we insist that our memorials be made of stone and set in a single place we cannot put all the names on there that should be on it. Maybe the best memorial we can offer them is to remember them and honor them and that means especially those who survived. Maybe we should be honoring the vets goodness and their humanity and their undying respect and love for each other. Remember..a funeral, no matter how sincere or elaborate does no good at all to the deceased but it is for the benefit of the ones who are left behind here to give some sense of closure and a landmark of an ending.

I hope this makes sense to you and answers your question as to how I feel about these others. Thanks for writing and thank you for a pointed and relevant question, responding to you made ME think about it as I havent before and thats always a good thing.

...and above all...

think for yourself.

beansimple said it

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