Night Rounds -A Visit to the Vietnam
Memorial
Marilyn Knapp Litt © 1998
It was Sunday, Veteran's Day weekend 1996, and earlier that day I saw the Vietnam
Memorial for the first time. Several people had attempted to explain to me how the names
on the Wall were arranged chronologically. I looked at the dates and the names on the
panels, but couldn't grasp it. I tried to listen, but the part of me that could process
that information was busy with other business. The Wall was higher than I had imagined,
and longer, and infinitely more terrible.
It was well into evening now as I walked along the Wall again, this time with a
friend. As you make the long pass from one end to the other, you reach a slight bend in
the middle. We didn't walk as far as the bend, but only walked along a short section of
the Wall before turning to retrace our steps.
There weren't as many people at the Wall as there had been during the day, and
everyone spoke softly if at all. Veterans tell you not to see the Wall by yourself and to
go in the evening. After dark, the visitors are mostly veterans and all are people with a
purpose, unlike some tourists who march past during the day.
We walked slowly and didn't talk. I was cold and tired and overwhelmed. My friend
was a veteran who served as a nurse in Vietnam and had been to the Wall many times. She
carried a penlight and, her head down, followed the small circle of light that slipped
along the ground a few feet in front of us. As we passed certain panels, she somehow knew
where she was, and would stop and flash the light briefly up to the Wall, illuminating a
small section to read a name. Then, almost as if reassured the name was still in place,
she would drop the light down again and stroll slowly on, not even looking up, before
stopping again to swing a soft arc of light over more names.
We didn't walk the length of the Wall, or even very far along the Wall, before
turning back to view again the same set of panels. A few times she broke the slow rhythm
of our pacing by abruptly retracing a few feet to check on a name or by pausing to give a
name extra scrutiny.
As we made the short circuit for perhaps the third time, she started to quietly
explain about the chronology. The Wall is linear, but the dates make a circle. The dates
on either end of the memorial are not from the beginning or the end of the Vietnam war. To
follow the names in chronological order, you start in the middle of the Wall at the bend
and walk to your right all the way to the end, then loop back to the left end of the Wall
and follow it until you are back at the center. As you do this you complete the circle and
gradually come to the understanding that the Wall, like the war, does not have an end.
Women in Vietnam
~ Not only nurses served . . . 
