Remembering Vietnam

In the previous post we saw the view from the Lincoln Memorial. If he could look out and crane his neck to the left he would see the Vietnam War Memorial, which includes a wall etched with the names of nearly 60,000 Americans dead in the conflict. Here we see the statue that is part of the Memorial with three soldiers appearing to come out of the trees on their way back to base. The accompanying statue is a bit further east and depicts the contribution of nurses to the effort.

I found it difficult to visit this site in 2010. Not nearly as many people are leaving flowers or pictures along the wall; I saw no one taking a rubbing of a name of one of the soldiers. It was far more active two decades ago. But the major portion of the feeling was the existence of the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, causing me to wonder if we as a country have learned anything in the past fifty years.