Last Sunday morning I visited the traveling version of the Vietnam War Memorial with my friend Steve who was horribly wounded in that war and watched many of his friends die. The version of the Wall that we visited is one-third scale, but still contains the names of over 58,000 American men and women who lost their lives in that catastrophic conflict.
Steve shared a few details about his experiences in the war. Mostly there was silence. Steve had visited the original Vietnam Memorial in Washington a number of times. But as we walked along the muddy path in the park at Charlestown, Indiana, where the traveling Wall was set up, Steve looked for the names of a few friends. Each time he found a name he gently touched its etched surface with his finger tips.
As I followed along with him I tried to connect with the people whose deaths in the war had touched my life, but sadly I couldn't remember their names.
One was the husband of my cousin, Janice. She had married her high school sweetheart right after graduation. He enlisted in the army soon after that in order to avoid being drafted. His chosen occupation for the war was to be a helicopter pilot. The two of them traveled to Alabama for his pilot's training. Then he was shipped to Vietnam for combat service. Only a couple of weeks later he returned home in a body bag. His helicopter had flown into a mountain in the monsoon rains that deluge that war torn country.
I remember his funeral. Janice was so distraught I feared that she was going to die.
The other Vietnam death that touched me personally was that of the fiance of a girl I had dated briefly in high school. I don't remember her name either. It might have been Barbara, but I think it was Judy. In any case I don't remember her fiance's name either.
What I do remember is the minister of my church calling me about her. I had met her when we were in Youth Fellowship at the Methodist Church we attended. We only dated a couple of times.
My minister called me at college to ask if I was coming home for the Thanksgiving vacation. I said I was. Then he told me about the death of my friend's fiance and asked if I would try to console her.
Her fiance had been in the navy on a "tour" of Vietnam. The day before he was to fly back to the world (as Vietnam Vet's referred to the US), and three days before they were to be married, he was killed in a non-combat accident.
When I got home for the holiday I went to see her. I don't remember what I said, but she was inconsolable. What do you say to someone who has just lost her life partner before their lives together have even begun? To this day I am at a loss for words to try to console my friend or any of the other millions of men and women who have seen the lives of their loved ones destroyed by war. What do you say? You're sorry? That just doesn't cut it.
But on that day when Steve and I visited the Memorial, the name of one Vietnam casualty did come to mind. For some reason that morning I began thinking about the Vietnam moratorium that was held on the campus of my conservative little college back in the spring of 1970.
A group of students stayed up all night reading the names of the American war dead. I was assigned a group of names to read that included those that began with the letter "L." I hadn't read through the list beforehand, but as I was working my way down the list I came to "Liberty." It stopped me. When those around me heard that "Liberty" was among the casualties, they all stopped what they were doing and grew silent.
I looked him up on the web today. He was Ronald Liberty. Age 20. A Marine from Chicago. He was killed in combat on March 30, 1967.
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