Viet Nam Memorial

Having come of age during the late sixties, the Viet Nam War was ever present in my awareness and life. For more than a few of my guy friends, Viet Nam was more than the evening television reports. As graphic as the television and print media coverage of Viet Nam was at the time, my friends experienced the horror of this war first hand. I do not know of anyone of my generation who was not scarred by this war in some manner. All of us either were there or know of someone who was there. In my case, more than five of my immediate peer group enlisted and were sent to Viet Nam within one year of our high school graduation. The military draft was invoked at the time and consequently if a young man was not lucky enough to be able to go to college, then most likely he was unlucky enough to be sent to Viet Nam.

For the past forty plus years, I have taken the selfish road by avoiding what I did not want to acknowledge. I have done all that I could to avoid watching movies, reading books or reliving my thoughts and fears about Viet Nam. Of my friends who served in Viet Nam, several were fortunate to come home physically whole but wounded in ways that most Americans could not fathom, then or even now. One dear friend came back so physically wounded and so angry that mentally he just gave up the fight to recover.

However, the one hero of Viet Nam that I would like acknowledge is my cousin, Donald Richard Barrett. It was for him and his siblings that I made myself visit the Viet Nam War Memorial while in Washington. Mark had visited the Memorial on a previous trip to DC and had found Don’s name on the wall. I was not sure that I would be able to find the inner strength to be able to do the same but as I remembered Donnie (as he was so affectionately known within our family) and his nine brothers and sisters and the loss their immediate family felt, my personal feelings seemed trite and selfish beyond imagination.



Don was pretty much in the middle of his sibling group and was two years older than me. The last time that I saw him was shortly before he was dispatched and we ran into each other at a party given by one of my fellow college students. I recognized him immediately and began talking with him and his girlfriend. It was at that time that he told me that he would be leaving in the not too distant future. The year was 1968. As an Army Infantryman, he was killed August 18, 1969 as a result of hostile fire. He will always be the hero of our family.