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Robert B. Robeson One-time rights only.
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Lincoln, Nebraska 68512 2,475 words
robertrobeson@neb.rr.com
TEL: (402) 423-0467

(This article is submitted for consideration in the “Saying Goodbye” anthology. It’s been previously published in Gung-Ho (1988) and Military (2004) magazines.)

REFLECTIONS FROM THE WALL
by Robert B. Robeson

“All these were glorious in their time, each illustrious in his
day…All these are buried in peace, but their name lives on
and on.”—Ecclesiasticus, Chapter 44.

It’s been nearly 22 years since I made a long, overdue trip to Washington, D.C. to say goodbye to some gallant and special friends. It was October 18, 1988. This extended odyssey encompassed two continents and over 10,000 miles. The Vietnam Veterans
Memorial had drawn me from Nebraska like steel filings to a magnet.
On this day in our nation’s capital, I was merely a middle-aged, retired soldier attempting to complete a personal quest and promise. Many of those I had known had been waiting patiently for years to have me drop by. The last time I’d seen them was in 1969-1970 in South Vietnam. As a helicopter medical evacuation pilot, some of them were the dead and wounded my crews evacuated in our UH-1H (Huey) cargo compartment on 987 missions. Most walls keep us apart, but this “Wall” was a tide tugging me home.
As I approached the twin, black granite scrolls that gracefully join in the center on a carpet of green in a peaceful corner of the Mall, I was awestruck. Over 18 years after my initial combat involvement, I knew in an instant of awareness that whatever these military members—whose names had been gritblasted into that wall—and I had been to each other, we still were. They all share equal billing on this memorial erected to bear the unbearable grief of our Vietnam involvement. It graphically denotes the brevity of human life in time of war. Any war.
Memories of combat and the personalities therein can be likened to a yo-yo. You can watch them fall away toward the end of the string, but they never die there. They merely sleep. The point in time always comes when, in a moment of reflection, they roll back up into your hand again. As long as they are tied to your life and soul in this manner, it’s guaranteed that they will keep returning to your thoughts on a regular basis like a properly thrown boomerang or the sparrows to Capistrano.
I didn’t stop to check the alphabetical directories located on each end of the
memorial. Instead, I stubbornly tramped the Wall looking for a panel marked “1970.”
When I found it I checked each row for the name “John R. Hill”—Captain John Richard Hill, missing in action. It was located in the center of panel 11 west, on line 58. For long minutes, I stood there silently gazing at his name and those of other comrades surrounding him. The images of earlier days and faces returned, leapfrogging each other like children at play.
People passing by whispered, trying not to disturb the sanctity or tranquility of the setting or those who stood transfixed before this commanding stone presence. The brooding black wall drew my complete attention. My fingers reached instinctively to softly trace John’s name and others carved on that polished panel. Remembrances of life and death in a place we called ‘Nam had been burned into my brain like a brand.
When I first met John in 1970, we were both newly-appointed “Dust Off” air ambulance detachment commanders. He commanded the 237th Medical Detachment in Quang Tri—an hour flight up the coast to the north—and I had recently become commander of the 236th Medical Detachment in Da Nang, located at Red Beach on the edge of Da Nang Harbor. We both belonged to the 61st Medical Battalion.
Not long after this initial introduction, we flew together to battalion headquarters at Qui Nhon for a commanders’ meeting. There we became acquainted not only as aviators and unit commanders but also as friends. A few of the things I remember John mentioning then were that his wife was a nurse and that he hailed from Waynesburg, Pennsylvania.
When he dropped me off in Da Nang on our way back from Qui Nhon, I distinctly remember feeling compelled to share something with him.
“John,” I said, as we waited for his bird to be refueled on our flight line, “anytime
you’re down this way or just passing through, feel free to stay over. We have extra cots, bedding and plenty of room for you and your crew. No use pushing it after dark or in bad weather. ‘Get-home-itis’ has probably wiped out more of us than Charlie (the enemy) has.” I wouldn’t realize how prophetic these comments would be until a few months later—April 27, 1970, to be exact.
The word circulated quickly in hushed tones throughout our compound. John, his warrant officer copilot, medic and crew chief had been flying north up the rocky coastline toward Phu Bai in marginal weather conditions. They were attempting to sneak home low-level under the cloud cover a few feet above the South China Sea. Flight conditions had deteriorated to nearly zero-zero visibility when John made the decision to turn around and head back toward Da Nang. The warrant officer, who was flying, initiated a 180-degree turn. In the process of banking sharply, their main rotor blades made contact with the water. They crashed offshore.
All four crewmembers managed to get out before the aircraft sank. The medic and crew chief in the cargo compartment were wearing heavy armored vests. This weight took them under before they could get them off. The warrant officer began swimming toward a nearby buoy. He heard John calling for help behind him because his arm was injured or broken and he was having difficulty swimming. When he turned to provide
assistance, John had already disappeared beneath the waves. The warrant officer made it to the buoy and was later rescued.
John’s body was never recovered and has been listed as missing in action ever since. It was just another “accident” in war. It could have happened to anyone under similar circumstances. But this time it was John’s misfortune along with two enlisted
members of his flight crew.
In their memory, the names of those dead and missing are inscribed on the mirror-like surface of those V-shaped granite walls—whose panels are as flat as still water—in the order they were taken from us. The latest additions to this roll call of the dead bring the current number of names on the memorial to 58,204. Each of the 250-foot-long walls is composed of 70 separate inscribed granite panels. The largest panels have 137 lines of names; the shortest have one line.
Many of these young soldiers were barely out of high school. The average age of Americans in this conflict was nineteen. Vietnam belonged to their generation and they were the perfect age to participate, sacrifice and pass on. All of them gave up two lives…the one they were living and the one they would have lived. Due to the brutal circumstances of war, their existences were snatched from them while they were attempting to provide peace and freedom for others.
During the four days I spent in Washington, I visited John and my friends at the memorial four times. Passing before these granite mirrors at 2:00 a.m. and observing the cool, still universe was refreshing. There is something about the silence and beauty of
lights along the wall’s base—with the Washington Monument also reflected from this memorial—that I will never forget. The lights atop the Washington Monument in the background are like distant stars placed there to watch over these fallen brothers and sisters. Here I was able to share their mute, motionless but eloquent presence in silent meditation.
None of these Americans ever grew old. Now they never will. They didn’t have to deal with a life of physical disfigurement, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Agent Orange or flashbacks. They discovered that the length of life is as uncertain as the morning fog. Now you see it and soon it’s gone. These American warriors were not born to die in the youth of their lives…but they did. In the very vortex of combat they were greeted and embraced by uncompromising Death.
Reflections from this wall are like laser beams to the soul. The list begins in the center of the memorial and ends in the center. As you stand reading the inscribed names, you see yourself reflected in the black granite. Regardless of from which angle it’s viewed, you are looking at yourself through the names of the dead. You are a part of it.
The Wall and those whose names appear on it, in turn, will always be a part of us.
When it rains, all of the names disappear because water makes the etched portions of the stone take on the same color as its polished surface. When we weep, the names are not easily seen, either…until the weeping is over.
I’m sorry it took me five years to make that initial journey to say goodbye. But this time was needed to emotionally prepare myself for seeing them all at once.
How far removed from the horrors of combat and its aftermath this memorial is. The bitterness and anger I felt when remembering all those lifeless and broken bodies that we hauled out of the rice paddies, mountains and jungles in Southeast Asia were laid to rest here. I could “numb myself out” and forget lowlife hippies and collegiate “intellectuals” spitting in the faces of returning combat veterans, who still had the dirt of Vietnam under their fingernails, at the San Francisco International Airport. Then there were those American protestors chanting “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, the N-L-F (National Liberation Front of North Vietnam) is going to win.” And I can’t forget the young soldier missing an arm.
“Lose it in Vietnam?” an older man asked.
“Yes.”
“Serves you right!”
It all happened so long ago. This is one of the reasons Vietnam veterans are among the throngs involved in seeing our Iraq and Afghanistan troops depart and then greeting them again when they return. They can’t forget what it felt like to be attacked, ignored or jeered by their own countrymen. They don’t want it to ever happen again to other American warriors who are doing their duty under conditions and circumstances many who haven’t served in combat are too naïve or ignorant to comprehend.
Meeting John Hill and the others, again, at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was a moving and memorable moment. Now their names—one of the most sacred parts of a person—are forever relegated like sand castles to time and tide.
When I viewed Frederick Hart’s sculpture of the three servicemen near the west end of the memorial, a sensation started somewhere in my spine, rippled upward in tingly waves to my scalp and raised goose bumps as they raced along. There we were. That was us in our youth, a perfect reproduction of idealistic young people confronted by the terrors of fighting, killing and being killed by other human beings…alone and vulnerable. It’s the young who traditionally fight and die for a country’s foreign policy . And the statue of these three weary young soldiers—seemingly leaning on each other for support as they chance upon this monument to their fallen comrades—captures the essence of our extended struggle in Vietnam.
Words can’t convey the emotion I felt at the Wall. It was so strong and pervasive that it almost seemed palpable—capable of being handled and touched. The profound reality of that moment was beyond description. It had finally put a turbulent chapter of my life into a healing perspective.
The Wall is where John Hill and all of our war dead from Vietnam have been symbolically buried. Their final curtain has been lowered in a dignified and respectful manner. I’ll forever be grateful for this ultimate act of human decency.
Goodbye, my friends. Get some rest. You’ve earned it. I pray things are finally peaceful for you now. How fortunate we are to have had you serve America. How lucky I am to have known so many of you. How very fortunate we are.

POSTSCRIPT

It’s been 40 years since Captain John R. Hill was officially listed as missing in action in Vietnam. In those four decades, my thoughts and feelings about him and the others I met and flew with in Southeast Asia haven’t changed. Since then we’ve seen other generations activated for Grenada, Somalia, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq, in addition to other places where American soldiers have fought and died in an attempt to bring freedom to oppressed people or to stabilize regional conflicts.
Vietnam was my generation’s war. But each combat veteran has his own “John Hill” to carry forever in his memory bank, regardless of the conflict or the manner in which this military member died. It may be a person who saved your life while losing his. Or it might be a buddy who brought humor to harried and horrific moments. Perhaps this made you realize that all soldiers can do is their best and that it’s important not to take ourselves too seriously. It may also be a person who taught you the valuable fact that love does exist in combat and that there were people in every branch of service, whom you’d never met, who were willing to risk their lives on your behalf. And it wasn’t because you were black or white, a general or private or a Democrat or Republican. It was because you were an American.
As most theatergoers know, at the end of Hamlet the stage is littered with dead bodies. Yet some in the cast are still alive. And life must go on. Even the tragic ending, in
other words, sends some actors and the entire audience out into the challenges of “yet a little while.” It infers that there will be one more and perhaps several more opportunities in life. The catharsis at the end of tragedy may find the protagonist dead but it leaves the rest alive and somehow impelled to continue.
Every veteran has to come to terms with the trauma of his/her war involvements. After all these years, I’ve learned that it’s all right to have survived combat when so many others didn’t. Bonus time and opportunities have been allocated to me, for some reason, and my responsibility is to be wise in their use. But I will never forget those who have suffered so long, in so many conflicts, or who have given their all for others at such young ages.
This fact remains, in courage, death or even the simplest human gesture of kindness, we often touch others in ways we may never imagine. That’s why I believe that these special comrades understood the terms “sacrifice,” “devotion,” “honor” and “duty” better than most in our society. All I can say is “God bless them, every one.”
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(1) VFW Magazine, May 1987, p. 24.
(2) VFW Magazine, May 2008, p. 25.
(3) “National Salute to Vietnam Veterans,” Program Souvenir, Nov. 10-14, 1982, Washington, D.C., p. 33.
(4) VFW Magazine, September 1987, p. 37.