A Volunteer At The Vietnam War Memorial
We visited the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington DC for the first time just before New Years. It was a cold winter day and yet there were many people visiting this memorial. At first glance it was humbling to see the 58,175 names of fallen soldiers. These thousands of names engraved in slabs of stone did not appear to be in any apparent order, but each slab of stone had a number, like a page in a book.
There was a man in a yellow jacket who turned out to be a volunteer for the Park Service. He said the names appear in chronological order of when each soldier died. There is a directory off of the side of the memorial where you can look up a person alphabetically then find their location on the wall. The wall is made in slabs and numbered to make the search easier.
This volunteer has been doing this work for 8 years, if I recall correctly. He appeared to be a gentle person who honors those memorialized on these slabs by volunteering for the Park Service only at the Vietnam War Memorial.
(Written by Gloria)
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