On Veterans Day

The late April cold front had forced me to zip my coat up a little further than comfortable. My wife fussed over our son, making sure he was warm as we walked through the great mall in Washington, DC. Tourists were scattered throughout the acreage – talking, taking snapshots and reading from maps or guidebooks.

After we passed the reflection pond, we made a sharp right and followed the trail up a slight knoll. I’ve been here before. Three times, actually. Each time it was the same. When I reached this corner of the walk, everything changed.

Two things I notice when I see the Vietnam War Memorial in front of me. First, it is silent. There may be one or two people talking, but you don’t hear them. Even Jonathan, an ever-excitable eight-year-old, remained silent. Second, you feel as though it should be raining.

As we pass and stare at the wall, I wonder if I could recognize any of the names from the dozens of stories my father shared with me about his time in the Marine Corp. The feeling quickly dissipates as I realize there are just far too many names – too many young men died – to be able to find that one or two who may be recognizable. Jonathan squeezes my hand. I know he has a question, but he doesn’t want to ask it. I can tell he doesn’t want to be disrespectful. His patience adds to the silence.

My father fought in the Vietnam War. I have an uncle who served in Korea. Several great uncles, and the man who gave me my last name, served in World War II. A friend of mine was in Iraq during the initial invasion. They each have seen war firsthand. They know the pain, the fear and the brutality that we who have not fought can only imagine or pretend to see on the big screen or on the pages of a book.

As a young boy I used to imagine myself as a soldier. I used to pretend to fight in fierce battles against the Russians – our Cold War enemy. I was John Rambo, or some other made up super soldier. War was glorious. War was heroic. War was something all the men in my family got to do. The wounds, to a young boy like me, just added to the mystique about it. An uncle had been blown apart by a grenade, living out the rest of his life with shrapnel dangerously close to his heart. My father has a scar on his arm from where a bullet grazed him.

My father has never visited the Vietnam War Memorial. He has no intention of ever going. What he has seen, what he has experienced, was enough war for him. The place I stood on that cold April morning with my wife and son was perhaps the only place on earth I couldn't bring my father. His presence was there that day. His experience -- or, rather, what I have imagined it in my mind -- permeated the air.

War is anything but the glorious dream I thought it was as a child. I never served in the military. I never fired a weapon at another human being. Nor have I been fired upon. My nearest equivalent was that I was a few blocks away from the World Trade Center on that fateful day seven years ago. That was enough to reassure my own feelings that war is horrible, that war should always be a last resort. And that the warriors, though what they have experienced may be anything but glorious, are all heroes.

We reached the other side of the memorial. A few steps later, we reached the outside world again. Birds chirped. I heard a mother chastising her daughter. We had returned. Jonathan again squeezed my hand.

“Daddy,” he said, looking directly at me. “I don’t want to go to war.”