Vietnam Memorial Traveling Wall
Lincoln City, Oregon
September 27, 2008
Roger C. King
I am honored to be asked to speak to you today.
I first visited The Wall in the Spring of 1983, it was still new then and most of us were visiting for the first time. I returned to visit the Wall whenever travel or work would take me through Washington DC. In the next 12 years I probably visited The Wall another 10 times, but even when I traveled with others, I always visited The Wall alone. The war was my experience and I was not sure how I should share it with others. Finally, on Veterans Day of 1995, I arranged to meet some Army buddies I had served with in Vietnam 25 years earlier. We had all visited The Wall individually sometime previously, but for all 4 of us, it was the first time we had visited with other veterans.
Visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, or The Wall as we have come to call it, is a very emotional experience when done alone. In some ways it becomes easier to visit with others who shared the experience, but in other ways it is more difficult. Eventually we found we shared not only the experiences of war, but we now share the experience of coming to terms with how to remember the war.
And so on Veterans Day 1995, for the first time in 12 years of visits to the Wall, I went there with others. And not only was I not alone, but I was with those I had served with, and we looked at the names we knew. I cannot, or will not try, to explain the emotions of that visit but I do hope that all those emotions are a part of me no matter how many times I might visit the Wall. That I never become so complaisant with visit to the Wall that I forget how I felt then.
The Wall is located on the National Mall, that wide band of green that stretches from the Capitol building to the Lincoln Memorial. The Mall is over 2 miles long. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is located on 2 acres of this vast park. To the East, and directly in line with the direction of the east panels of the Wall is the Washington Monument. And, to the West, again in direct line with the west panel of the Wall is the Lincoln Memorial. In fact, the angle of the Wall was decided to intentionally point to these two memorials.
Inscribed on The Wall are the names of 58,260 men and women who died or remain missing in our Nation’s longest war. Among those names are 781 from Oregon and 25 from Lincoln County.
The names are arranged in chronological order, or as is inscribed on the wall, they are listed “in the order they were taken from us”. The dead and the missing are listed together in one continuous list. If a name needs to be added to correct an error or omission, or because death didn’t occur until after the wall was constructed, it is added to the wall in its proper chronological order. Each line originally contained 5 names leaving space for a sixth name to be added as necessary.
The list starts under the date 1959 on the first panel to the east of the center of the monument. From those first few military advisors killed in 1959 the list continues for 70 black granite panels stretching out to the east toward the Washington Monument. From that last inscribed panel on the east end of the Wall, the list is resumed on the last panel on the far west end of the monument. From there the list continues back toward the center of the monument. The list ends with the last to die in that war right above the final date of 1975. The names were arranged in this order to bring the beginning together with the ending, a sort of closing of the conflict. There are no other dates on the Wall. I should point out that on the replica with us here today, dates have been added to each panel to identify time periods, and the inscriptions at the beginning and ending of the list of names is different.
There are few other words on monument. At the beginning are these words: “IN HONOR OF THE MEN AND WOMEN OF THE ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES WHO SERVED IN THE VIETNAM WAR. THE NAMES OF THOSE WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES AND OF THOSE WHO REMAIN MISSING ARE INSCRIBED IN THE ORDER THEY WERE TAKEN FROM US.” The list of names is then followed by these words: “OUR NATION HONORS THE COURAGE, SACRIFICE AND DEVOTION TO DUTY AND COUNTRY OF ITS VIETNAM VETERANS. THIS MEMORIAL WAS BUILT WITH PRIVATE CONTRIBUTIONS FORM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.”
In 2001, I again made plans to visit Washington DC on Veterans Day. I decided to spend some more time at The Wall. I contacted the National Park Service, which administers the monument, and offered to volunteer for a week.
The Park Service sent me some materials to study in preparation for volunteering. But I knew that learning about the monument and preparing to answer visitor’s questions would be the easy part. Dealing with my own emotions would be a much harder job.
On a previous visit I asked a volunteer how he dealt with his emotion. He had volunteered one day a week for the previous 19 years. His advice would be helpful, I thought. “Its real hard sometimes” he said, especially dealing with family members of those on the Wall. He then told me some of his experience helping sons, daughters, brothers and what I always thought would be the most difficult, mothers who had lost a son in Vietnam. Well, I thought, he had been doing this since the Wall was constructed, surly there would be few family members making their first visit after so many years.
I arrived at the Park Service station early on Sunday morning, a week prior to Veterans Day. I had agreed to spend 8 hours a day for the next seven days. They outfitted me with a shirt and cap, which identified me as a volunteer. I was lent a copy of the directory of names.
Listed by each name is the individuals rank, branch of service, date of birth and death, and hometown. Finally the panel number and line number where the name can be found is listed. The panel numbers are marked at the base of each panel, and inconspicuous tick marks help keep track of lines counted down from the top on each panel. The center panels are over 10 feet tall, while those on either end taper into the earth itself.
Early in the week I was often the only volunteer on the site. The Park Service staff would occasionally pass by, and at times remain on site to help with the visitor’s questions. One of my primary tasks was to help people find names and to help make name rubbing when requested.
I didn’t expect to have too many people visit the wall for the first time, and I never expected to have to deal with family members of those on the wall. Certainly, I thought, they would have made visits before, and would not need too much help on return visits.
Several times I helped people from small towns who came with a list of everyone on the Wall from their town or county. There were never more than a few names on these lists.
Some had lists of all those from their high school who are on the wall. One guy came to find a friend from his high school football team. More than once I met women who were looking for the name of an old boyfriend.
Finally, guys about my age started to arrive, and asked for help finding a name. Most didn’t ask for more help than finding the name, and I knew they wanted to deal with the visit alone. One can tell those who are looking at a name of a buddy they once stood beside in war.
Over the next week I learned a great deal more about the Wall and the names on it. On two separate occasions I met and helped sons find their fathers name on the wall. Their stories were very similar. Their parents had been married only a short time, in one case they got married just before he left for Vietnam. One of the sons told me, his father died without knowing he would be a father.
At one point I met a young woman who said her father, whom she never met, had served in the same Battalion as I had. I was able to put here in contact with some who served with her father. She now has met those who actually held her father when he died.
Later in the week, the number of visitors started to increase. Thousands would attend the memorial services on Veterans Day and many of those were arriving early. One afternoon a woman asked me to help find a name. When we found the name, there was a wreath standing in front of the panel. “That’s the wreath from the funeral,” she said. I asked her to tell me how this came about and she continued to tell me the story. The name was her cousin. He was killed in action in 1967 and his body had been recovered. However, the helicopter, which was transporting the remains on the first leg of its journey home, crashed.
The crash site was never located until just the previous year. With the cooperation of the government of Vietnam, we continue to have search teams in Vietnam. Eventually her cousin’s remains were recovered and identified. She told me his parents had both died in the ensuing years. She is now the closest relative. The day before, her cousin was finally buried in Arlington Cemetery.
Several hours later two men asked if I could help find a name for them. We arrived at the same spot, the panel with the wreath. They too said something about that being the wreath from the funeral. I told them about the young lady who had been there earlier, but she was not looking for the same name. I then learned there had been three bodies on that helicopter, and in fact I was talking to two survivors of that battle. They had helped load the helicopters that carried the dead and the wounded from the battlefield. Now they had returned for the burial in Arlington, and to visit the names of their buddies on the wall.
Another visitor pointed out his buddy’s name. His friend had been seriously wounded in 1967, but didn’t die from those wounds until after the wall was constructed. His name was added to panel 14 East, right next to the others who fell on that same day.
On panel 42 East, line 41 is listed Ronald Allen Slane, a 20 year old combat medic from Lincoln City. Ron and 48 others from his company of the 25th Infantry Division died on March 2, 1968 in one of the single most costly battles of the war. Ron had previously earned the Silver Star for gallantry in action. A conscientious objector, Ron enlisted in the Army and died carrying a medic bag in place of a rifle. Our VFW Post is named in honor of Ron.
One afternoon, an elderly lady asked for help to make a name rubbing. The name was too far off the ground for her to reach, so I got the stepladder to make the rubbing for her. She appeared calm and seemingly at ease with the visit so I asked her as I often do with visitors, is he a friend or family member. I guess I expected to hear as I had on other occasions, “he was in my Sunday School Class”, or “I was his first grade teacher”, or “he was the son of the family who lived down the street from us”. But instead she said softly “He’s my son.”
On Panel 1 West, just ten lines above the end of the list, is one of eight military nurses on the Wall. During the fall of Saigon a plane load of orphans were being evacuated when the military transport plane crashed on takeoff. Mary was a nurse on that flight, she and all aboard that flight died in the crash.
Somewhere on Panel 12 West is the name of a young trooper from Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, First Cavalry Division. I stood next to him seconds before his death. I never knew his name; he had arrived only two days earlier. Those of us who had heard the distinctive sound of an enemy mortar before shouted “incoming”. That’s all we could do, but it was not enough.
Finally, last year, over 25 of us who served together in that battle all gathered for a reunion in Branson, MO. I had not seen or talked with most of them since we left Vietnam. When we talked about that battle on April 1st of 1970, we found that none of us knew his name. Our grief and guilt was made worse knowing that none of us could help each other remember his name. We had all searched data records, finding many possibilities but no direct matches. Records of KIA’s were kept at the Division level and not by Battalion or Company.
But with the combined and renewed efforts of all those attending that reunion, we have now found his name. On Panel 12 West, Line 73 is the name of Gerald Ray Pollard, Jr. Gerald was born on July 3rd 1948 and died when an enemy mortar round detonated near him on April 1st 1970. If you have a chance today as you visit the Wall, please stop at Panel 12 West, and tell Gerald that he had never been forgotten.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is called the wall that heals. It was intended to help individual healing and to heal the nation and bring it together after the divisions of that war. One person said it was to help people separate the war from the warrior.
Just a few hundred yards West of the Wall, is the Lincoln Memorial. In his second inaugural address Lincoln spoke about how war had divided our nation. Of course he was talking about the Civil War. But his words are appropriate even now: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations”.
As our nation once again looks to heroes to stand in harms way, I think about the injustice to the 58,260 names on the wall. For a long time their heroism was clouded by the political controversy that surrounded the war. But all that started to change with the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in November of 1982.
I know from my experience at the wall, it truly is the wall that heals. By the millions visitors come to the wall with quiet respect for the names listed there. The political differences, which once separated us, are no less important now. But at the wall, we can join together to honor and remember those who gave their lives and those who remain missing.
Webmaster Note: Roger served in Company B, 1/12th Cavalry from December 69 – April 70. While remaining to be assigned to the Division, he completed his tour as an instructor at the Armed Forces Language School, Vung Tau Annex. He departed Vietnam in November 1970.
Readers who have read his other story posted here: "A Week at the Wall", will remember in that story he related a story told to him by another volunteer at the Wall about an encounter with a God Star mother. In his comments at the Traveling Wall visit to Lincoln City, he relates a similar story that happened to him. I asked Roger if this was the same story. His reply: “No, I wrote the article “A Week at the Wall” after my first week of volunteer service in November 2001. At that time I had not yet been asked to help find a name by a Gold Star mother, however, I was always concerned as to how I would respond emotionally if such an encounter were to happen. Seven years had passed between that first story and my comments at the Visiting Wall in September 2008. In that time I have encountered several God Star mothers, and that was the story I related in my comments in September of 2008.”