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by Steven Miller
For Spring Break in 1987 we took our three kids to Washington, DC, where we spent the first day visiting museums and more than one ice cream shop. The second day began with a walk through Arlington National Cemetery, me explaining the neat and endless rows of white markers to a seven, five, and three year old. We saw the Eternal Flame by President Kennedy’s grave and the Marine Corps monument depicting the flag-raising at Iwo Jima, then walked across the Potomac River to the Vietnam Memorial, that shining slash of black marble, representing the lasting scar on the American conscience.
This was my first visit to the Wall and I was not sure what to expect. I received a clue when, as we approached, I passed a man about my age, in a sport coat and jeans, specks of grey in his black hair, walking away from the memorial, his eyes wet with tears. We continued forward, following the crowd filing along the length of the Wall. At the base of the monument were artifacts, flowers, portraits, and notes left by the grieving relatives and friends of the soldiers, Marines and sailors whose names were on the Wall. I paused for a moment near the center of the Wall, standing back a bit to let others search the seemingly endless list of names, the ones who didn’t come back.
I thought of all the left-behind spouses and children, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers that each name represents. I thought of the lives they did not get the opportunity to live, the parents and grandparents they never became.
As I stood silently watching, my mind drifted back to my own military experience. I had entered active duty in the Army in October, 1970, having received my ROTC commission as an artillery second lieutenant. After the Field Artillery Officers’ Basic Course, I fully expected to receive my orders to Vietnam. However, I was fortunate that the Army chose to assign me to an artillery unit at Fort. Sill. It was the time when the U.S. was turning as much of the war as possible over to the South Vietnamese.
The unit to which I was assigned was at only about seventy-five percent strength, and the majority of the soldiers were recent returnees from Vietnam. Many had less than nine months left on their enlistments. Most were draftees, their backgrounds as diverse as the society from which they came. They were African-American, Caucasian, Hispanic, Native American. There were college graduates and some had not finished high school. Some came home from Vietnam damaged psychologically by their experience, some were simply glad to be back and anxious to get on with their lives. But they all had one thing in common: they had all come back.
As I watched the people filing past, I noticed one lady, about my age, looking toward the upper part of the wall, a piece of white paper in her hand. She turned to look around at the faces of others like me who were standing back. Her eyes locked on mine, and she walked over to me. “Would you mind helping me?” she asked. “My brother’s name is up there and I can’t reach it. Would you be so kind as to make a rubbing of his name?”
She handed me the piece of paper and a thick charcoal pencil. I stepped up to the wall, her by my side. She pointed up and told me the name. I reached up, flattened the paper over the name and carefully rubbed the charcoal over it. The name was then transferred to the paper. When I finished, I handed it to her.
“Thank you,” she said, tears trickling slowly down her cheeks.
As I watched her walk away, my eyes drifted again the Wall, and the neat rows of names. It occurred to me, as it had many time in the past, that but for a decision by some Army personnel officer or clerk who had put my name in a particular stack of papers, my name could have very well been on that wall.
When I rejoined my family, my oldest son asked what I had done for the lady. My kids were aware that their father had served in the Army, but at their ages, they understood little about the war, and I doubt they could appreciate what the Wall represented.
I put my hand on his small shoulders and told him that war was something that I hoped his generation would never have to experience.
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Steven Miller is a native of Indianapolis, Indiana and a graduate of Indiana University. He served as a U.S. Army field artillery officer on active duty in 1970 through 1972, leaving the Army Reserves in 1978 at the rank of Captain. He spent his career in finance and investments, including fourteen years as Treasurer of Indiana University. He is retired from Northern Trust Investments and lives with his wife in Holly Springs, NC.
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