“All I could feel was the worthlessness of dying right here in this place at this moment for nothing.”
-Ron Kovic, Born on the Fourth of July
We spent 19 of the 30 days of November on a healing journey in Viet Nam. We were on pilgrimage to acknowledge our veterans’ stories, reclaim their souls, and heal the wounds of war. We stayed close to one another and held hands when we were sad, frightened, or overwhelmed. We breathed in the tragedy of war and gave ourselves fully to cultivating reverence for life. All along the number was with us. 58,261. But it is such a large number. It felt vague and intangible. 58,261. How does one comprehend a number so large?
It was only today after returning to the United States and parting ways with my Viet Nam family that I truly felt the reality. Breathing in the crisp cool air I walked through the lawn of Lincoln Memorial and towards the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The sisters of life and death played before me as I walked on lush green grass topped with dead brown leaves. Moving slowly in my heals and black funeral dress I began to sense what was waiting.
Vietnam Women's Memorial ~ How many were held before they died?
Suddenly I was there and the world narrowed down to a book of names. A book of death. Running my hands over those pages my heart broke and fell to a new depth of understanding. Name after name after name. Page after page after page. The numbers became faces. The vague and intangible became individuals with mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, and wives now called widows. I wanted to read every name. I wanted to scream in horror for every name.
But I could only stand there and say a tiny prayer. One small prayer for 58,261 as I ran my hands over those laminated pages in the middle of that quiet city park on a cold December morning.
there was a soldier
tapdancing softly in the rain
above the coffin
six feet above, the people praying
-Ron Kovic
Vietnam Veterans Memorial ~ books are used to locate names on the Wall