Eyes water viewing Vietnam Traveling Wall

June 25, 2007

Allergies hit hard in Lewis County last week, especially at the Veterans Memorial Museum in Chehalis where eyes watered and voices choked as thousands of people viewed the Vietnam Traveling Wall.

You often hear veterans complain about allergies when they gather together to honor one another and those who never returned home.

I do suffer from allergies, but it was overwhelming emotion that brought tears to my eyes. Standing on Harrison Avenue, waving, I felt dampness on my cheeks as I watched several hundred motorcycles escorting the Wall through town.

My kids thought I was crazy to cry. That’s OK. They’ll understand someday how much it means to have men and women willing to risk life and limb to serve their country.

Viewing the wall at opening ceremonies Thursday, I kept thinking how much different my life might have been. My husband’s name could easily have been etched on that wall, alongside nearly a half dozen of his fellow soldiers in the 25th Infantry’s Company B, 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry. His last day in the field took place Sept. 21, 1968—just 16 days before an Oct. 7 firefight at Hua Nghia killed several of the infantrymen in his platoon.

We saw their names on panel 41-West, listed on two lines: William Shuman, Walter Rice, Roy Koenig and Kenneth Sills.

On the east end of the wall, we saw the name of Donald C. Nelson, my husband’s childhood friend and schoolmate whose casket he helped carry to a gravesite in Bellingham just a few months before he shipped out to Vietnam.

But my husband always referred to these men in more familiar terms, such as Billy Shuman and Donny Nelson, names used by family and friends that make them more real. They will be forever young.

As I walked along the wall with my 12-year-old son, I kept thinking of the nearly 58,450 shattered families who lost a brother, a son, a husband, a father. Or a sister, a daughter, a wife or a mother, since museum director Lee Grimes pointed out that eight nurses also died in Vietnam.

We crossed over to the display of gold dog tags, representing all those who have died in military service since Vietnam. I looked for the names of Joseph P. Bier and Regina Clark, and we found them. Again, tears sprang to my eyes as I thought of the thousands of families who are grieving the loss of their loved ones—an absence that will always be felt. As Grimes said, “Our hearts break for you.”

We owe so much to the military men and women who have served this country. I hope and pray my son never has to fight in a war, but if his country calls, I’m sure he’d serve—just as his dad did, and his grandfather, his great-grandfather, his great-uncles, great-great-uncle, and great-great-great-grandfathers.

Brig. Gen. Richard Read pointed out similarities and differences between the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. He noted both wars are politically unpopular, perhaps entered into without accurate intelligence and without a definitive exit strategy.

But he mentioned important differences—especially the way the returning armed forces are treated.

Returning veterans abandoned the front lines in Vietnam to face hostility at home—no welcome, no parades, no ceremonies.

“We were encouraged not to wear our uniforms in public,” Read said. “We were told not to travel in uniform.”

He said it heartens him to see returning veterans welcomed home, applauded and cheered in airports, given the heroes’ welcome they deserve.

I agree wholeheartedly. The way some people treated returning Vietnam veterans stained this country’s past. It was atrocious. I cannot begin to fathom the mindset of people who would behave in such a way. I was only my son’s age when the war ended, but I wore POW/MIA bracelets and felt incredible joy when men who had been missing in action arrived once again on U.S. soil.

I’m so glad that local Vietnam veterans are finally receiving the kudos they deserve for serving our nation—every year during the Veterans Memorial Museum’s Vietnam Veterans Recognition Day.

I am also grateful to live in Lewis County where patriotism reigns and it’s cool to love your country.

The museum’s staff and volunteers deserve huge thanks for bringing the Wall to Chehalis, providing a wonderful opportunity for us to reflect on the cost of the freedoms we enjoy. As a popular magnetic car sticker so eloquently states, it’s the “land of the free, because of the brave.”

Julie McDonald Zander is a personal historian and former journalist who lives in Toledo. She owns Chapters of Life, a company dedicated to preserving the past, one family’s story at a time. Her Web site is www.chaptersoflife.com She can be reached at memorybooks@chaptersoflife.com