A tall and slender woman caught my attention.  She was sobbing, and I wanted to help.  It was a very hot day, growing more uncomfortable as the humidity soared, assuring no relief.  She wore a simple, white dress.  I watched for a few moments wondering what had triggered her grief. The tears now came down in a stream, faster than she could wipe them away.  For her, emotional scars had been opened, and the pain grew deeper on her young, ebony face.  More than ten years after I left Vietnam, this woman was bringing me face-to-face with the cost of war, and the terribly high price that people pay.

The chance encounter took place in Washington, D.C.  I often find myself thinking back to that summer morning and those agonizing moments with her. The place, a black granite structure, wasn't especially imposing, maybe a dozen feet tall at its highest point.  Yet, it wasn't the physical aspects that drew us together.  Indeed, the power of this edifice was magnetic as soon as it opened in 1980.

From dawn and into the night, a constant stream of children, women, and men reverently file by this structure, occasionally pausing to place a bouquet of flowers, Bible, flag, photo, or memorabilia at the base of the wall.  Some come in ill-fitting military uniforms and others in dark suits; there is no pattern to what people wear.  For the most part, they are solemn.

There is no other place in Washington quite like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. There may be nothing quite like it in the world. Sure, there are memorials to military campaigns and wars. "The Wall" as it is known, honors the 58,241 men and eight women, who died 13,000 miles from U.S. shores in a difficult war. It is intended to also honor the 2.5 million men and women who served in Vietnam during the war, including, I suppose, myself.

The names chiseled into the black granite are anything but a cross-section of our country. There are only eight sons of Harvard. Not a single Congressman or Senator sacrificed a son to the war effort. You won't find many names from the swanky neighborhoods of Manhattan, Carmel, or Georgetown. The kids memorialized there are largely Christian and Catholic.  The average age of a soldier or sailor in Vietnam was just 19, far younger than those who had served in previous wars, and a full seven years younger than World War II veterans.  Kids who had never voted, owned a car, or had a real girl friend fought the war in Vietnam, and many died for their effort.

For two years, I spent Saturday mornings at the Wall as a National Park Service volunteer, I supported, in whatever way I could, the visitors that stumbled into my midst. I froze when it snowed, and boiled when the temperature climbed to 100 degrees with unbearable humidity.

I would lie if I said that I was volunteering.  I was there out of guilt.  I had never done enough in the war.  In my own way, I must come to grips with my inadequacy. How many names are on that wall because of my failure?  I had to connect my feelings, long buried, with the souls of those Marines who died on the field of battle.  In war, you don't get to say goodbye.  A man could save your life, then be gone the next second. Things happen very quickly, often with a brutal finality.

Now, I could slow down and pay the tribute that was due. This was hallowed duty. Perhaps as sacred as anything I had done in the Marine Corps.  Along with the privilege went pain.  Being there was something that I was never eager to do each of the 100 or so mornings that I was called to serve. On most Saturday mornings, I awoke hoping that this would be the day when I would finally ignore my reluctant obligation. When tempted, I folded my hands in prayer.  God always gave me the courage to go.

Words far more magical than my own have been offered.  Major Michael Davis O'Donnell wrote: "If you are able, save for them a place inside of you and save one backward glance when you are leaving for the places they can no longer go.

"Be not ashamed to say you loved them, though you may or may not have always. Take what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own.

"And in that time when men decide and feel safe to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind."   The major was killed in action in 1970.

I was there to put a face on the war, to connect those many names with fathers, mothers, sisters, and brothers or those friends who chose to look behind. War, if anything, was a family affair as "The Wall" so aptly illustrated.  The pain of fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, was immeasurable.  When a name was found on the edifice, families would lock hands in prayer as tears poured down their cheeks

If the wall taught me anything, it was that family is so very crucial to men and their willingness to go to war. It was families that so often sustained the young boys sent into the swamps and jungles of Vietnam.  It was their fathers, grandfathers, and uncles who taught them to shoot; better yet, it was them by their example the values of duty, honor and country came to be embraced. It was mothers, grandmothers, and aunts who taught them how to love, to do the right thing when the choice came.  Soldiers are born in boot camp, but they are spawned well before they leave home.  Boot camp awakens their souls, revealing the military's way of doing what is largely known.

Each Saturday I returned to my tiny row house, on Capitol Hill, with tears pouring from my eyes. I would bow my head in prayer and thank the Lord for the opportunity to help the searching souls that I had, in whatever way, assisted that day. Sometimes there were questions: Why do young men have to die in war?  More importantly, did they go to heaven?  War spawns heroes beyond imagination and Vietnam was no exception.  These men were special because they went. 

The young woman in the white dress was to be loved.  It was somewhat unusual to see a single female at this memorial. Together, we looked for the name she wanted. As we searched, she told me that she was from Florence, Alabama and had taken the Greyhound bus to see this precious ground.  When we finally found the name, tears poured once again from her large brown eyes. "That was my daddy," she revealed. As she collected herself, she told me that her mother became pregnant with her shortly before her father had left Camp Pendleton in California for Vietnam.

"My mother used to tell me about my daddy and what a man he was," the woman lamented. "They would sit on the porch and sing Amazing Grace.  She told me how they had met in church.  It was love at first site."

The tears just kept coming.  "My grandfather was in the Army in World War II," the woman reported. "He had fought in North Africa and then in Italy.  He didn't say too much about it, but you knew that it had been hard for him. There was a large scar on his cheekbone.  His eyes would stray as he talked, and sometimes he would just stop.  Daddy's death was hard on grandpa."

I could tell from the date that her father fell that he had been killed during the Tet offensive, a massive assault where over a million communist troops assaulted American bases in every city in South Vietnam, trying to swamp our positions and take charge of the war.  The communists failed because of men like her daddy, men who rose up and eventually beat back a determined enemy. 

"I would love to sit on his knee and to hear him sing. Mother said he had a great voice." Perhaps I understood this lady's pain, just a...