Memorial Day

On top of the walnut secretary in my home office are several reminders of the war that dominated our young adulthood.  There is a book titled, The Wall.   The cover shows a little boy on the shoulder of a man dressed in his field khakis.  The boy is leaning to the wall and kissing a name permanently etched in the polished black granite.  One name from among 58,282 killed or missing soldiers.  

There are two bronze busts next to the book.  Both are by Glenna Goodacre who sculpted the Vietnam Women’s Memorial that stands across from the Wall.  The first  is a nurse - most of the 265,000 women who served were nurses.  If you look into her eyes you can see the intensity of one who felt called to heal but you see more.  Written in her expression is the futility that led her home country to abandon its connection to those who went to serve.  

The second sculpture is titled, Little Orphan.  It is the head and upper torso who appears to be a little Amer-asian girl.  She is staring into space as though there is nothing for her eyes to focus on - fear of a lonely unknown future is spoken by drooping, puffy cheeks.  In Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil's musical, Miss Saigon, there is a song titled Bui-Doi  -  the dust of life.  Some children of the time were the dust of life - cast aways in a country that was the accidental front in a war of ideologies over power.  As the song said, “...half-breeds from a land that’s torn...whose crime was being born.”  The story tells of one soldier trying to reunite with his child left behind.

Alongside the sculptures, there are two metal strap cuff bracelets.  While our political opinions about the war raged on the nightly news, we wore these bracelets every day - supporting those who had gone to serve and to wear the hope that every missing soldier would be returned.  

One bracelet has the name LCDR Mike Hoff and the date 1-7-70, missing in action - he was 39.  Michael G. Hoff was promoted to Commander while he was in MIA status after his plane was shot down over Laos.  Almost nine years later, the Navy declared him deceased but his body was never found and likely never will be.  In 1992, the Navy sent a letter to Mary Helen Hoff that said interviews with Laotian villagers indicate that Commander Hoff had not survived the crash.   In memory of Mike, and of all of the 58,281 others on the Wall, Mrs. Hoff provided the inspiration for the POW/MIA flag which has become the most ubiquitous symbol of that war.

The other bracelet holds the name CDR Brian Woods - 9-18-68.  Commander Woods flew his A7A with Attack Squadron 97 on a five plane strike mission from the USS Constellation.  He disappeared over Ha Tinh Province on that September day.  After his plane was hit, he safely ejected and was almost immediately captured.  His MIA status began on September 18, 1968 and was changed to Captured on January 14, 1969.  On February 12, 1973, Commander Woods was repatriated in the Hanoi prisoner exchange that came to be known as “Operation Homecoming.”  As if to punctuate coming home, the Woods family extended their sponsorship of Voran Ju, an orphan in a leper colony in Thailand - not exactly Bui-Doi but one child whose needs were accentuated by war. 

The Vietnam Women’s Memorial includes three nurses tending to a wounded soldier.  One nurse is standing and looking upward - her name is Hope.  The next is kneeling with her head tilted forward in an attitude of prayer - she is called Faith.  The last one is the life size version of our maquette and she is bent over tending to the wounds of the fallen soldier - and for every fallen soldier she is known as Charity. 

It was this war, this Vietnam War, when we separated from personally carrying the burden of war.  There were others who were sent to wage the war - who carried the cost and then the blame.  Too many of us failed to accept any responsibility for the men and women, and their families, we sent to fight, to die in our collective name.  

 Every war, every era, every generation and every nation spawns thousands of stories.  We should learn about people like Mike Hoff, Mary Helen Hoff, Brian Woods, Paula Woods and all of their children - natural, adopted, or sponsored and those lost or saved.  Certainly, we should learn the stories that abound and are still being lived from the deserts and cities of Afghanistan and Iraq.  And two shelves down from all I’ve described is a triangular box that holds an American Flag.  It is the flag that draped my father’s coffin.  Given in honor of his service to this country, it was service that he rarely talked about but would have gladly repeated if necessity demanded.  Draping this flag is, at once, the largest and the least that a grateful nation can do.  It's Memorial Day - a day to learn, honor, remember and care.

--td