What an amazing weekend. The Vietnam Travelling Wall came to Schaumburg this Memorial Day Weekend. Jason has been part of the planning committee for the last three years and I knew the whole weekend would be taken up being part of it.
I had volunteered for a 3-hour shift early Saturday morning to be on Computers as part of the Name Locators, locating names for visitors; telling them where on the wall they could find the name of their friend, family member, loved ones. We had a computer database, as well as a directory of the 58,000+ names on the 80% replica wall. We also had a directory for a tribute created to the soldiers who gave their lives in Desert Storm, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc since Vietnam.
I had intended on serving my 3-hour shift and then going home. Jason would be there from beginning to end all 4 days that the Wall was there. And by “beginning to end” I mean 7am to 8/9pm. But that Saturday, I found myself too involved, too intrigued to leave. I was helping people. Some would come in with lists of classmates, friends, or of guys they had served with while they were in Vietnam. They wouldn’t know if they were on the wall or not and it made me feel good to not find those names. It meant that they at least had left the Combat Zone alive, if they had been in Vietnam.
One gentleman had his list of 5 or 6 names. Guys he had served with. As we made our way through the list, one name was located on the wall. His eyes filled with tears and he couldn’t even go any further. He simply turned around and left, sobbing.
The database would pull up also how a particular soldier was killed. You didn’t want to, but your eyes would go to that almost automatically: “Explosive Device” “Air-Crash” “Drowned” there were so many different listings. We also had a book that listed all of the POW/MIAs for Vietnam. The book described the date they went missing/were captured; if they were found; date body was identified; date they were released; any specific/comments.
One gentleman had me print a list of all the Marines killed on March 13-15, 1969. He had been in battle on that day with them and wanted to preserve all of their names with rubbings. He had initially asked about just the 14th. But after discussing it with me and Dennis, a veteran who travels with the wall, he printed the day before and after as well.
Dennis had served in Vietnam in 1969-1970, if I remember correctly, as a combat medic with the 1st Cavalry. He had been wounded, which I only knew because of the Purple Heart pin on his hat. He talked about how a soldier may have been wounded in battle, then flown to Japan or the Philipinnes for treatment. If he had died from his wounds then, he wouldn’t appear on the Wall, because he had died outside of the Combat Zone. He talked about how as a medic there were times that he had a handful of dogtags of soldiers who had died; soldiers he had to fill out the paperwork for, etc. So many that he wouldn’t always remember the exact date a particular soldier had died, because there had been so many over a short period of time. I learned a lot from Dennis in the few days I was with him. He sat right beside us creating custom dog tags for people. I shared my respect for anyone who has served with him. He also had a wonderful sense of humor and we enjoyed teasing each other all 3 days.
People would come in with metallic bracelets. During Vietnam they would sell these. The names engraved on them were of soldiers who were POW or MIA. People would ask about these names. Many, unfortunately, were on the Wall: their bodies had been recovered or they were still missing. I had a few, however, that we couldnt’ find in the Wall’s database. After racking my brain on variant spellings or searching by hometown, I would pull out the POW/MIA book and discover that the soldier had been released. He had made it out of the country alive. What a glorious feeling that was to see a Release date in his information. He had lived to make it home to his family. The AVTT group was selling these bracelets still; some were still for soldiers MIA in Vietnam and some were POW/MIA from Iraq. They are not forgotten.
One veteran came to me looking for the location of the gold dog tag made for a Sergeant killed in Iraq. I located it and told him where he should be able to find it. I can still remember the name: R. Napper killed in 2006. About 20 minutes later the veteran came back saying he couldn’t find Napper’s name. I advised him that I was sure it was there, but I would try to go down and look myself. He had to leave, unfortunately. I advised that the tribute would be open all night, if he wanted to come back and look again himself. I never was able to make it back onto the field. I hope that he was able to come back later in the evening. The sacrifice of his friend has not been forgotten.
I spoke with a Legionnaire who said he felt guilty because during Korea he had been assigned a non-combat position and was never shipped overseas. But he said, “I did what the government told me to do.” Which is all that any soldier can say.
A volunteer this weekend was working in honor of his grandfather killed in WWII and in honor of his father killed in Vietnam. He adhered his father’s name from his fatigues to his volunteer shirt and wore his grandfather’s dog tags.
One veteran came straight from his 3rd shift job at the post office to spend 6 or 7 hours every morning to help others located loved ones on the Wall.
Then there was the woman who brought the “yearbook” of her son’s Marine group that served in Iraq to find information on her son’s best friend that had been killed.
So many stories and more like these. This is what kept me at the Flyers Stadium the entire weekend, working to help someone find closure, to find out what happened. Saturday I stayed from 7;30am to 9:00pm. Sunday, I stayed from 7:30am to 8:00pm. Monday I stayed from 7:30am to 2:00pm, left for a few hours, returned at 6:00pm and stayed until 8:00pm (hey, laundry HAD to get done for the week!).
If I could retire 30 years early, I would travel with this group. The people met and the things I learned; volunteering was the least I could do to honor their service and those who sacrified all.
For information on where the Wall will be next:
http://www.avtt.org/index.htm
Be sure to check out their blog, complete with pictures from the weekend in Schaumburg:
http://avttorg.blogspot.com/
For information and pictures from this weekend in Schaumburg:
http://www.costoffreedomtribute08.org/
