The Wall

Hello everyone, I hope y’all had a wonderful 4^th of July weekend. I’m sorry to keep you waiting with the next installment.

After my time at the WWII memorial I continued down the national mall. While I walked beside the reflecting pool looking at the Lincoln Memorial started to remember important moments in American History that occurred there. As I looked at the steps of the memorial I began to imagine what it must have looked like to be at there listening to MLK give his “I have a dream” speech on that August day in 1963.

With it being a rather hot June day I decided to go off to a shady area near the Lincoln Memorial. 

Before I knew it I had ended up next to the Vietnam War Memorial. The memorial has been called “the wall that heals”. After being there in person I can attest to that name being well-deserved. I decided to sit down on a park bench and see what was going on. The Memorial was rather quiet that day. The only real sound came from a park ranger giving a tour of the Memorial to a summer program, of some sort, that was full of middle school aged kids. I listen for a little while as the ranger talked about important names and dates associated with the wall. I must admit I was probably listening to the ranger about as well as the children were. I was distracted by my own thoughts. The ranger eventually led the group away to the “Three Service Men Statute”.

 In the absence of the tour group a hush fell over the area. After a few more moments of silent reflection I walked over to the wall. As I began to get closer to the wall, the smooth, polished black marble began to reveal the names of those who gave their lives in service to the nation. It was almost impossible for me to digest the shear amount of names engraved on that wall. I remember looking down to the other end of the memorial. All along the base of the memorial I could see things people left at the memorial. Some of them were personal items like photos from comrades. Others were simply things like flowers and cards left by loved ones. I began to tear up a little as I thought of the men behind the names. All of these men had hopes and dreams, they loved and were loved and they gave all that up to serve our country. Their brothers who did come home didn’t receive the welcome they deserved. Some were verbally or physically attacked simply because they answered the nation’s call. I started to think about all the veterans of Vietnam that I know in my personal life, and what they must have gone through both on the battlefield and back home. That is why I want to take this time to thank any and all Vietnam vets for their service. You came home without as much as an acknowledgement from your fellow Americans. So from this grateful American I’d like to say “Thank You and Welcome Home!”

Mr. Stroud goes to Washington

    Hello loyal readers I’m back by popular demand and this time I’m in the nation’s capital. I’m going to be in DC for most of the summer for an internship in the meantime I’m going to try and keep y’all posted about the things I’ve been up to. I’ll apologize now about this post because of the fact that I’ve been out here for about a month so this is going to be a long post. I’ll probably have to break it up into several parts.

Due to the nature of my internship I’m not able to visit many of the sights during the work week. So I’ve been spending most of my weekends at the numerous museums, memorials, and tourist attractions. So far I visited all the memorials on the national mall, except the Jefferson memorial (which is way out away from the mall).

While all the memorials are indeed special I felt that the World War II memorial and the Vietnam memorial were the most moving. I remember being at the WWII memorial on the weekend of June 6^th. As I was slowly walking around the memorial, I was quietly reflecting to myself that this memorial was there to symbolize the sacrifice this nation made in order to make the world a safer place. As I was doing this I remember seeing the people around me.

Most of them seemed oblivious to the fact that they were standing in a memorial, let alone what the memorial stood for. This troubled me, I stayed motionless watching all the happy tourists laughing, joking, and taking pictures of themselves acting silly. Suddenly something pulls me from my thoughts I see a group of women motioning me to come over to them. When I got over to them one of them asked me to take their photo in front of the memorial naturally I agreed to help them. As the group sorted out how they were going to pose for the picture. Something behind them caught my eye.

It was an older man; he looked to be probably in his mid to late sixties. As he walked to one end of the memorial I could sense that he came to this place to remember someone. When he reached the end of the memorial I saw him bend down and place something on the ground. About that time the group of women were ready for their picture. I quickly took two shots to ensure at least one turned out well. I handed the camera back to the owner and hurried over to where the man had been standing. 

However, by that I got over to the spot the man was gone and all that was left was his mystery package. The old man had placed two medals and a little packet on the lip of the memorial fountain. The fountain itself was made out of granite. The edge of it had the names of important battles and campaigns of the European theater engraved on it. The old man placed his belongings on the part of the fountain that bore the name NORMANDY. The medals appeared to be a bronze star and the WWII victory medal, the packet that accompanied it contained pictures of the national cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach, a small bag of sand from that beach, and small note.

The note said that the reason the medals were placed at the memorial were to remember the man’s father who had fought at Normandy. He believed that these things belonged here, the note went on to thank all those who served during the war and to offer to give these items to anyone who fought at Normandy. As I stood there looking at these items I was hit by a wave of emotions. The Strongest feeling I had at that moment was regret, I wished I could have found the gentleman that left behind this heart-felt note and these medals and talked to him. I wanted nothing more than to sit down on one of the park benches and listen to him as he talked about his father. Nevertheless I knew it would be impossible to find the gentleman in a city the size of DC. (To be continued….)