Veterans

This afternoon my friend Susan and I visited the Coatesville VA Medical Center to see "The Wall That Heals," a traveling version of the black granite Vietnam Veterans Wall in Washington DC.
It was moving and sobering. The half-size replica contains the names of the nearly 60,000 Americans who died during the conflict, listed by "day of casualty" (a chilling phrase). Sixty thousand, each with a story, each leaving loved ones behind: it's beyond comprehension.
There's also an exhibit of photographs of the young soldiers, letters home, MIA/POW bracelets, helmets and boots and dogtags, and a map and summary of the Southeast Asian conflict that was a staple of the evening news when I was growing up.
One of the workers had a thick notebook containing all the names in alphabetical order, and he looked up my friend Larry's father and helped us to find his name. Maj. Charles Kesterson was killed by a land mine on May 4, 1966, at age 30.
There were probably a dozen people at the Wall, and another one of the workers told us there had been a steady flow of visitors during its stay in Coatesville.
That morning, before I emailed Susan and asked her to go with me, I thought, it's really windy; brrr, it's going to be cold out there. I had to laugh at myself: what a wimp! Compare that to the incredible discomfort, pain, anguish and danger that these brave men and women went through (and many still do to this day) to defend their country.
Still more locally: Did you know that there's a World War II monument at Unionville Elementary School? It reads "IN HONOR OF THE MEN AND WOMEN OF EAST MARLBORO, WEST MARLBORO, NEWLIN, AND POCOPSON TOWNSHIPS WHO SERVED IN WORLD WAR II TO PRESERVE THIS NATION AND PROTECT ITS HONOR - Erected by the citizens of these townships July 4, 1943."
(The "Marlboro" spelling is [sic], not my typo!)