The Moving Wall

The Vietnam Memorial Wall is in town this weekend. It travels around the country. It is a replica of the memorial that is in Washington DC. Bird got to see the real one when she went back to Washington in 2003.

I've been wanting to see it. My cousin's name — Henson Frank Walker, is on the wall — panel 22 on the West wall on line 45 — to be exact. He was killed in action on Friday, June 13, 1969 — 3 months shy of his 24th birthday.

It was at Pioneer Park in Provo. Sister Megs went down with me to see it. I didn't expect the reaction that I had when I got there. I figured, I'd go down, find his name, take a picture, and be done. I pretty much had a lump in my throat the whole time I was there, finding his name, seeing the people — some vets, some in uniform, some disfigured, some looking as hippies — all silently, almost reverently looking for someone's name and whispering amongst themselves.

They had computers set up under a tent awning. You would give the person's name you were looking for and they would print it out on this piece of paper. We tried doing a brass rubbing, but it didn't turn out. So I "photoshopped" the rubbing from DC that Bird had done. I also imposed the photo that I took of his name on the panel at the bottom of the paper.