"I came to see my son's name." By Jim
Schueckler FlewHuey@FrontierNet.net
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My job as a volunteer "visitor guide" was to help people find names on the
Moving Wall Vietnam Veterans Memorial. More importantly, I gave visitors a
chance to talk. While searching the directory or leading a visitor to the name
they sought, I would quietly ask "Was he a friend or a relative?" Over the six
days, I began conversations that way with several hundred people. Only a handful
gave me a short answer; almost everyone wanted to talk. Each had their own story
to tell. For some, the words poured out as if the floodgates of a dam that had
been closed for thirty years had just burst open. For others, the words came out
slowly and deliberately between long pauses. Sometimes, they choked on the words
and they cried. I also cried as I listened, asked more questions, and silently
prayed that my words would help to heal, not to hurt.
"I came to see my son's name." I heard those and similar words from several
parents who came to the Moving Wall. Their son had died in a war that divided
our country like no other event since the Civil War. He died in a war that some
Americans had blamed on the soldiers who were called to fight it. Some young men
had no choice; they were called by the draft. Others, including some 30,000
women, were called differently, by a sense of duty to their family and nation.
Our culture mourns and respects our dead, but in the shadow of that bitter
war, the sacrifices of those who died and their families were not allowed to
have dignity. Mothers and fathers came to see that their sons had not been
forgotten; that their names were remembered on that Wall; that someone else
cares.
A frail and elderly mother came to the Moving Wall in a wheelchair. As we
looked for her son's name, she described his interests during high school, and
then the agonizing days when she was first told that her son was injured, then
missing, then classified as "lost at sea." She asked me to thank all the other
people who helped bring the Moving Wall to Batavia.
"'Til death do us part" came abruptly to thousands of marriages because of
that war. I met two widows of men whose names are on the Wall. One woman showed
me a picture of her husband and separate picture of their daughter. A man who
never met his daughter. A girl who grew up without a father. I was painfully
aware that had some Viet Cong soldiers been slightly better marksmen, my wife
and son might have come to the Wall to see my name.
Sisters and brothers came to see a name. One brother so close in age that
"People were always calling us by each other's name, and we both hated it." A
sister said "I was so much younger than him I didn't realize why my Mom was
crying when we said goodbye to him at the airport."
One brother confided that, although he had not been a war protester, his
feelings and his first confrontation with the Wall in Washington were almost
identical to those of the brother in the play "The Wall, a Pilgrimage". He said
"It was as if the actor had reached into my soul and exposed every one of my
feelings about my brother and the war."
A group of four people stood near one panel. I offered to make a rubbing of a
name. The man pointed to the name Paul D. Urquhart. I asked "Is that Captain
Paul Urquhart, the helicopter pilot?" The man nodded and said "He's my brother."
I explained that I flew with Paul on his first tour in Vietnam and read that he
had been shot down during his second tour. Paul's brother said that he and his
family came from Pennsylvania on the anniversary date of Paul's becoming Missing
In Action. I made a rubbing of Paul's name and added a rubbing of the Army
Aviator wings from my hat, a symbol we had both worn so proudly so long ago.
Aunts and uncles also came to see a special name on the Wall. One aunt said
"He stayed overnight at our house so much that one neighbor thought he was our
son." An uncle lamented: "I took him hunting. I was the one who taught him to
like guns."
Cousins came to the Wall, and many said "He was like a brother." One man
asked me to look up the name Douglas Smith. I asked back, "Do you mean Doug
Smith, a Marine, from North Tonawanda High School?" The man introduced me to his
wife, Doug's cousin. She was pleased to be able to talk about Doug with a
classmate who remembered him. I showed her Doug's name on my own, personal,
list.
Veterans came to see the names of their buddies. Most of them were eager to
tell me about their friend or how he died. Many remembered the day in great
detail; and spoke of what's called survivor guilt. "He went out on patrol in my
place that day." Or "If I hadn't been away on R & R (rest and recuperation), he
wouldn't be dead." Others were bothered that they couldn't remember much about
their friend because they had tried to "block it out" for so many years. Another
man said "I lost a few good friends while I was there (Vietnam), but I don't
want to find just their names, because I feel the same about all 58,000 of these
names."
"Tree-line vets" are men or women who have finally been able to go to a
Moving Wall location, but are terrified of coming close enough to actually see
some names that have been haunting them so many years. One such veteran stood
for a long time some fifty feet from the Wall. My brothers Vic and Chris talked
with him. After a while he and Vic were able to laugh about some of their common
Marine Corps experiences and then they were finally able to approach, see, and
touch, those names together.
Many people came to the Wall in the privacy or serenity of darkness. Our
security men reported that there were only a few minutes each night that the
Wall had no callers at all. One visitor spent several hours in the middle of the
night standing in front of a certain panel. Whenever anyone came close, he would
move away. When alone again, he would move back to that panel to continue his
silent vigil. Still others came in the darkness before dawn to watch the break
of a new day over the Wall.
One vet came in a wheelchair. He could not talk or walk, but with great
effort, Peter's shaking hand could scrawl messages on a pad. The nurse who
pushed his wheelchair said that Peter had been excited about the Moving Wall
visit since he first read about it in the Daily News. Peter came to see the name
of his friend he thought had died in 1975, but he could not remember the man's
name. They had been high school buddies and joined the Army together. They went
to boot camp and Vietnam together. Peter saw his friend die. At the bottom of
panel 1 West I squatted down and read off the names of the small number of men
and one American woman who died in Vietnam in 1975. Peter did not recognize any
of the names.
The EDS computer operators ran a search, but found no Vietnam casualties from
Peter's small home town. We asked if his friend might have come from another
town, and Peter wrote "Wales?" The computer search gave one name, but he was
killed in 1968. I went back to Peter and asked "Was his name Eric Jednat?". The
shock on Peter's face, and then his tears, told us that we had found the right
name. We moved to panel 53 West where we turned the wheelchair so Peter could
touch his friend's name.
Many people came who were not related, but knew one or more of the men named
on the Wall. A high school teacher told me "I taught four of these boys." Others
said: "He was the little boy who lived across the street.", "We were going
steady in high school.", "He delivered my newspapers.", "I was his Boy Scout
leader.", "He went to our church.", "I worked with his mother at the time he was
killed.", "My son played football with him.", or "We were classmates for twelve
years." There were hundreds of similar personal connections between the visitor
and one or more names on the Wall.
To other visitors, the names were not as personal, but still were
significant: "I didn't know him, but I remember how it shocked the town when he
died.", "I just wanted to pay my respects.", "I didn't know any of them, thank
God.", "I came to show support for the vets who came back.", or "My son went to
Vietnam, but he came back OK."
Others expressed amazement: "I wanted to see the names of the seven young men
from Holley, I can't believe our little village lost so many boys.", "I had no
idea so many lost their lives.", "Such a waste. Such a terrible, terrible,
waste.", "I hope and pray we never go through that kind of war again.", or "Is
this the price of peace?" Some visitors asked rhetorically: "Will mankind ever
learn?"
Two weeks after the visit of the Moving Wall to Batavia, a friend told my
wife "I don't understand all the concern about the Moving Wall; why don't people
just forget about that dirty war?" For many, the Moving Wall does not need to be
explained. Those who do not understand are, perhaps, more fortunate than those
who do.
Copyright 1995-2002 Jim
Schueckler,
8219 Parmelee Rd, LeRoy NY 14482
(585)768-2877
FlewHuey@Frontiernet.net
The 192nd
Assault Helicopter Company Website
