Place to see: Vietnam Memorial, Washington, District of Columbia, United States

Postcards about Vietnam Memorial:

• 

  24 June 2008
  From:
  Anne Beach

  Married for one month, my husband left for Vietnam in 1968. I was in graduate school and counted the interminable days until his return. I was grateful he was on a destroyer and so safer than most, but I was still worried and would sometimes dream I saw his name on a list of the dead. We stand at this wall, this list, forty years later; our lives have played out with children and grandchildren, joys and sorrows, but our lives have been allowed to play out. Each name here is not only a name, but a life left incomplete.

• 

  16 June 2008
  From:
  Anne Beach

  From a distance, reflections play across the names, each representing a life lost. From a distance, we reflect upon a war where many died, each representing a different story. Were we there with them? Was it our son or daughter, our father or mother, our husband or wife, our brother or sister, or our best friend or guy who was our rival in high school basketball? The power of the wall is unexpected as our lives are reflected across their deaths. The breadth and length of the wall does not let us forget the enormity and permanence of the sacrifice.