The rain was coming down in a hard drizzle
as I approached the area where I had been told that the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial ("The Wall") was. It was close
to 10 p.m. by the time I reached the area of the mall that
I had been directed to. What struck me first was how dark
it was, and the fact that there was no flag or flagpole nearby.
As I approached the memorial, a vet in cammies (camouflage
fatigues) came up to me and told me to "watch my step."
It became evident why he had told me this when I discovered
that there was no walkway, other than a muddy track, upon
which someone had put some boards and you had to walk on the
boards to keep from falling into the mud. Except for the portable
Coleman type lamps at either end of The Wall, there were no
lights to illuminate either the walkway or The Wall itself.
Although
there wasn't much to see in the darkness, I did experience
some profound emotions as I walked down the path to the center
of The Wall, and then walked back up in again to the other
end. I felt as though I was walking into the pits of hell
as I walked down the path that led to where The Wall was highest,
where the two ends converged. A sudden chill came over me,
I started shaking and then I started to cry. I don't know
why, but the crying seemed to take over my body and I couldn't
stop. It felt as though I was going under water and the waves
were crashing over me and the water was pulling me out into
the dark, deep sea. It was total sensory overload and it was
not something I was Prepared for or ready to deal with, it
was just too overwhelming and I had nothing to compare it
to. These conflicting feelings and emotions included what
I later found to be something called, "survivor guilt".
Seeing, or since it was so dark, feeling all those
names on The Wall, just overwhelmed me with this sense of
why I survived Vietnam when all of these other guys
(and girls, eight of whom are on The Wall) died. Why did I
come home when all of these others didn't? Why was I
so special that I lived and they died? For the first
time in my life, since returning from Vietnam, I was starting
to deal with some of the things that I had locked away in
some secure place in my mind. And it scared me! So,
alone with the guilt and the grief I now added fear to what
I was feeling. And the fear was an enveloping type of fear.
It just swallowed me up, so that there was nothing of me left
and I felt lost and alone and unsure of what was happening.
Walking
back up the boards on the other side of The Wall, I was just
totally overcome by all of these feelings, and felt myself
stepping up my pace, as though, by getting away from The Wall,
I could get away from all the feelings. As I approached the
furthest end of The Wall, one of the vets in cammies came
up to me and just grabbed me in a bear hug. He could tell,
without my saying anything, that I was a Vietnam vet. He could
tell, without my saying anything, that I was overcome by it
all. So he did the best he could and just hugged me, telling
me that it was OK and that I should come back in the daytime
and that it was a beautiful thing to see. He also told me
something that almost struck me funny'he said, "Man you
don't have to say anything, it's OK." Hell, even if I
had wanted to say something, I couldn't have, I was too busy
crying like a baby, with all of these feelings bubbling over
and bursting out of the door that I had double-locked them
behind in my mind. It seemed like he held me in that bear
hug for an hour, but it was probably only for a few seconds.
As I walked away from him, I did feel somewhat better.
Two
hours later I found myself walking around downtown Washington,
D.C.. I had no idea that two hours had gone by--it was as
though I was on automatic pilot and had shut my mind down
for that period of time. Perhaps the whole experience of seeing
The Wall for the first time, and alone, had been too much
for me to deal with and my mind realized that and just went
off on its own for some well-deserved R & R.
Since that day in January 1983, I have been back to
The Wall five times. Each visit has given me a new insight
and has helped tremendously in the healing process. Someday,
Vietnam really will be over, for me and every other vet that
was there.
