Reconciliation Road: A Family Odyssey

18. Elegy at the Wall

18 Elegyallhe Wall , WO DAYS LATER, I visit the Wall. I first visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial a year ago and it had not been a time for much reflection. The September day had been a late blast of Washington's steambath summer, and Anne and I had been trying to complete a whirlwind tour of the city's tourist sites with a one-year-old in a stroller. Now, I am back at the Wall again when there is a special ceremony . Thousands of people have come to pay tribute to nineteen men whose names have just been added to the Wall, their sacrifice previously overlooked for various reasons, usually how much time had passed between their injuries in the war and their deaths. It is also Veterans Day, what seems an appropriate time for me to visit the Wall. I am a Vietnam-era veteran, after all. I wore my country's uniform for one year and nine months, was promoted to first lieutenant when the time came, received an honorable discharge at the conclusion of my service. Yet I am one who served but later said no to any further participation in the armed forces. And I am painfully aware that I am one of the fortunate conscientious objectors, able to express myself well on paper and in person, a decided advantage in the arduous e.o. process. So my application was approved, while many others were rejected. There were even those e.O.s who were sent to military prisons after they refused to fight, far braver men than I, true heroes of the war. All this conspires to make me feel desperately separate. Viet203 204 RECONCILlAnON ROAD nam ripped apart my generation, dividing us into those who went to the war and those who did not, causing an estrangement that lingers two decades later. That may be why I, a war objector, feel compelled to make a pilgrimage to this memorial to the war dead. The Wall is the war's symbol and perhaps this is the place to seek a truce. But this will not be easy, I discover after I park the car and set out for the Wall. I must pass through a gauntlet of stands selling Vietnam memorabilia, campaign pins, sloganeering T,shirts, bumper stickers, military paraphernalia, photos, wall plaques, rugs, ashtrays. I am repulsed by seeing the war experience, cause of so much agony, now turned marketable commodity, hawked with curios and souvenirs. I am set on edge even more by one of the first conversations I overhear near the Wall. It is a guy simply saying, "I was a plain ordinary grunt, I did what I was supposed to do." That makes me think about how many others did what he did and what they en' dured because of it. I have read many of the Vietnam veterans' mem, oirs and novels, seen most of the best films about their experience, interviewed many vets and chronicled their stories. I know too well what vets faced when they went to what the military called "a short tour area," or the much longer tour of life in the States afterward. But this comment by a "plain ordinary grunt" also causes me to ponder what might have happened if more had not gone along, do, ing what they were supposed to do. Might fewer names be on the Wall if more soldiers had somehow managed to take a stand against the war. Going along can be so insidious. A 1971 survey of enlisted men on their way to Vietnam found that 47 percent believed the war was a mistake and still they went anyway, maybe to their deaths, when there were other options. This is the heart of the dilemma that I face when I consider Vietnam veterans. I have great empathy for what Vietnam vets have gone through, but also wish they had not gone at all. I can respect the choice they made, as long as they made a choice, just as I can respect those who chose not to go. The Vietnam War is the true villain, fucking over most of the men and women in our generation in one way or another, presenting endless no,win options, ruined plans, family crisises, actions born of desperation, death, loss. And Vietnam vets often had it worst and still do. I walk around this peaceful park in Washington, with its green ELEGY AT THE WALL 205 lawns, groves of trees, Reflecting...