Yes, Virginia, we used to have real Memorial Days

Remembering Why We Have Memorial Day

I remember being with my son on a school vacay down in DC where he was born eight years earlier. I wanted to show him all the sights that I was so taken with when I lived down there for a half dozen years.

I decided to start at the top so we rode up the 555 feet and 5 inches of the Washington Monument from which you can see just about anything worth seeing in the whole of the District of Colombia. I had seen most of it, shepherding visitors to all the most sought after sites when they came. But I had not seen “The Wall.” It lived up to every description I had heard of it since the 24 year old Asian American, Maya Lin, had won a contest to design it while she was still studying architecture at Yale.

It gave me the chills. It gives all veterans the chills as well as anyone who has any connection with that hateful war. Looking at it from that height I began to wonder what old army buddies names might be on it. How would I find them? I took some solace that my brother’s name would not be there. He only lost an eye.

We walked down the million or so steps to the base of the monument. I couldn’t get my mind off the meaningfulness of “The Wall.” As we approached, I felt that my legs were getting rubbery and I knew it wasn’t from all those stairs. About half way across I started to slow down as I felt an awkward moisture blurring my vision. I knew in a trice what was happening. It happens to everyone I know that has been there but more intensely for any GI and most especially for the men and women who were in Vietnam and knew somebody whose name is one of the 58,000 plus on those 148 panels.

I was an airborne medic in Germany when the hideous Gulf of Tonkin scandal broke and propelled us toward a full commitment in Southeast Asia in 1965. By 1966 I said goodbye to spit-shine and white-wall haircuts forever. I vowed never to do another push up or wear khaki or OD. The news of Nam came in steady drips. Some one I knew in school had died. A guy from our medic unit down in Ft. Sam had been brutally executed. A friend of mine, still in college, was trying tearfully to cope with his best friend’s death that happened only a few months after he got his lieutenancy.

I joined other Vets down in DC in the late sixties in the hopeless effort to get Tricky Dick to come to his Quaker senses and end the senselessness. Then as now I ask what those people died for. Name one thing that was accomplished that we can say even one of those lives was worth. People went to war for their country because of a sense of duty, sure, but many went against their wishes because it was the law. Both types ended up on “The Wall.”

My brother came back convinced that he had not lost his eye in vain and resented the hell out of my anti war attitude. My younger brother became a conscientious objector. My father rolled over in his grave. It was a time of division in this country whose likes have not even been hinted at since. A time when long hair could get you beat up, where hippies and straights were like the Jets and Sharks.

At UNH I hung out mostly with ex-service types. We never talked about the military to anyone else. It was a disgrace. People called anyone in uniform “baby killer” and used to give soldiers in uniform the finger sometimes when they were hitch hiking home on leave. Brother against brother, Father against son, citizen against country. It was awful.

And then it stopped. GIs came home one by one. No parade as had happened when our fathers came home. No pat on the back or attaboys. They slunk home and walked in the door to the only people who gave a crap about them. They came back haunted with nightmares of Nam that would never go away. They learned to live with the specter of “Nam Vet,” code for whacko or even dangerous.

But the Vets pulled together and formed groups and counseling centers and lobbied Congress. Insult to injury came when agent orange was recognized as an agent of cancer and genetic defects. In 1984 most affected veterans received a one time payment of $1200 for their pains. Most are not expected to live past 65. Thanks for your service guys. Dow and Monsanto still thrive.

When the first Gulf War broke out there was an outpouring of support for the troops and even the war itself. The country pulled together and it began to dawn on all how shabby we had treated our Viet Vets. People openly expressed their regret and promised to make it up. Soon, the cry was, “What about our guys who came back from Nam?” Things got better and, better late then never.

It was a treat to watch the volunteers putting The Moving Wall up on Thursday morning. Old guys (my age) hanging around in remnants of uniforms of all descriptions with T shirts that said Army or Marines. Dave Dube of Lazy Susan’s restaurant down on the Eff/Oss line has been working for veterans for years. On Thursday morning the ex-Marine took another hit for the cause. While riding in a cherry ’55 Chevy convertible to lead an antique car procession down to Constitution Park not far from his restaurant, he and two buddies were rear ended. The car was totaled and Dave and two others were ambulanced to Huggins. When I found him at the Moving Wall, he had 15 stitches in his head and some in his back and neck but he was right there with the others admiring the handiwork of Mike Gaudette’s crew who were putting the finishing touches on the project. It was heart warming to see a dozen or more Kingswood High Schoolers polishing the 148 panels and it was eerily reminiscent of the real deal down in DC.

The Moving Wall will be here through the end of Memorial Day with taps and a final ceremony at 6 p.m. It is a beautifully done replica that has constantly been touring the country since the mid eighties. Dave couldn’t believe his luck when they told him he could have it for Memorial Day. Going to see it is a great way to be counted for the ones we so counted on back then. Just go up, or down, Route 16 and then East on Route 25 for a couple of miles.