"...war's greatest evil - the degradation of the human spirit."
-Eleanor Roosevelt
-Introduction to Anne Frank:  The Diary of a Young Girl DoubleDay and
                              Company, Inc.  copyright 1967.






One mother visited the wall and wrote an open letter to her son:

I didn't know what to expect or what my reactions would
be at seeing this black wall.  I just had to go....
The weather was unseasonably warm and sunny when
we arrived in Washington, D.C.  We got out of the car
and started walking toward this Memorial.  I could feel
pulled toward this black wall and yet my feet didn't
want to move.  I was so scared.  I was afraid I would
find [your] name on this wall and yet I was afraid
that maybe some mistake had been made and the name
was left out....[Then I saw it.]  My heart seemed to stop.
I seemed to tremble.  I shook as though I was freezing.
My teeth chattered.  I felt as though I couldn't get my
breath.  God, how it hurt!...From the wall, like a mirror
reflecting through my blurry tears, I seemed to see
faces.  Then I realized it was not the faces of the ones
who had died, but of the living, who were here, like me,
to find the name of a loved one.

Scruggs, Jan C.  To Heal a Nation - The Vietnam Veterans
Memorial.  Harper 	& Row Publishers.  New York:  1985.