The Remembrance

“Why do I have to go to this stupid thing anyway Molly?”

“Because Walter, I think it will do you good. Really. You can even get a couple of the guys to go with you if it’d make you feel better. D.C. is only a few hours’ drive away.”

Walter Reynold glared at his wife. “What guys??” he hissed. “They’re all gone! There was a war not long ago if you don’t recall!” Walter threw his arms in the air to emphasize his anger. He used to have so much patience, but it wore very thin since his return from the battlefields of Vietnam; especially when it came to walking down Memory Lane.

Molly Reynold put a gentle, calming hand on Walter’s tense shoulder. “I know I know. But I still think you should go. I know it might be hard, but you can pay your last respects to them. Wouldn’t you want for someone to come if it was your name on that wall?”

The words came slowly to Walter. He was positive that he did want someone to honor him if he had died during the Vietnam War with his comrades, but he didn't want to admit to Molly that she was right… again. “I…guess… so…” he mumbled. Shaking his head and muttering to himself, Walter trudged up the stairs to his room to pack. He didn’t want to go to Washington D.C. He didn’t want to be reminded of all the comrades he had lost during the war. And he certainly didn’t want to go to the only one-year-old Vietnam War memorial.

“Thank you Walter!” Molly called from the base of the stairs with a dainty wave. Walter got the feeling that going to the memorial was more for Molly than it was for himself, eve n though he was the only one going.

Despite his reluctance to go, Walter packed his bags and set off to Washington D.C. early the next morning after a long, nearly sleepless night of his usual post-war nightmares.

The traffic buzzing around the nation’s capitol was unbearable, making Walter even more unhappy than he was when he left the comfort of his home to relive a horrible memory. All of the excuses he tried to use had been snipped down by his wife’s unbeatable wits, and there was no way of getting out of this now. Sure, he thought of just going to the other memorials and bypassing the Vietnam Memorial, but he was a terrible liar; Molly would pick up on his trick the second he walked through their front door.

Once Walter found a place to park his car, he set off to the memorial he dreaded to see. Of course, with the memorial being newly finished, he had to wander around the capitol’s other memorials and monuments before spotting the long black walls of the Vietnam War Memorial cutting into the ground. With stones weighing down his heart, Walter proceeded to the wall. The east side of the wall gradually sunk into the ground before him, seeming to stretch into oblivion.

The memorial’s simple design amazed Walter; how could something like this win a nationwide contest? He forced his feet to carry him forward and toward the crease separating the east and west wall. As he went closer to the crease, the ground sloped downward, making the wall seem to grow beside him. Flowers, wreaths, ribbons, and other tokens of memory littered the floor against the wall.

Walter strolled along the wall, seeing names of many soldiers he knew and had worked with during the war. Most of them had a diamond beside their name and some had a cross, but Walter took no mind of the little pictures as he tried to avoid stepping on bouquets of flowers and cards that had been propped up on the wall’s smooth black surface. He continued to scan the little white names for someone. Who that person was, Walter wasn’t exactly sure, but he knew that it’d hit him when he saw the name. Like clockwork, Walter stopped at a spot on the wall and stretched out his hand to run a finger over a little white name. “Horace Menasha,” Walter breathed out, tracing the small diamond shape next to the name that had little edges of a cross barely visible underneath it. That was the name he had been looking for.

Horace Menasha: one of Walter’s favorite companions during his service in the war. Horace had brought what little light that was possible into their darkest situations. He poked at the little things and tried to brighten the otherwise depressing day. Not to mention he was feisty and very young; too young to be in the war legally. He told the other men in his group about how he used his older brother’s identity to fight for his country, though nobody (including Horace) could understand why he would go to this war on his own volition. Everybody was glad to have Horace around and Walter looked after him as a little brother, thus Little Brother was quickly adopted as his nickname. But during a raid in the Vietnamese town of Iwo Jima, Horace had been dragged away and was never seen or heard from again.

That fateful day replayed in Walter’s mind as if it had happened only seconds ago, without the extreme disbelief clouding his logic. Walter had never seen Horace dead, so he always kept a glimmer of hope that he might still be alive and return home one day. He leaned on the wall with his hand pressed against his friend’s name as a tour guide led a group behind him.

“The markings beside each one of these names aren’t just for show,” she said to her group. “The crosses beside the name indicate that the soldier was missing in action and have still not returned home. The circles indicate that the soldier returned alive, and the diamond means that the soldier died during the service. Unfortunately, there are no circles on this wall.”

With those few words, Walter’s false hope came crashing down forever and he locked his suddenly tear-filled eyes on the diamond next to Horace’s name. It was wrong to have hoped…You knew better than that…You knew better than to come here at all… Just go home…Walter thought. But a light tap on his shoulder brought Walter out of his thoughts.

“I think you might need this,” said a woman’s soft voice. She held a marker and small piece of paper tied to a white carnation out to Walter. “You can leave the flower there for him. It’ll do you good,” she continued, repeating Molly’s favorite saying.

Walter took the items and, in a loss for words, nodded to the woman in thanks. She accepted the nod, seeming to understand what he was trying to say and strolled toward the shorter end of the wall. Walter scribbled a short message onto the paper and placed the flower against the smooth black surface. Drops of water darkened the concrete at Walter’s feet. Walter leaned his head back as tiny droplets from the heavens splattered against his face. With a final glace at Horace’s name on the wall, Walter ran for shelter from the increasing downpour.

“Molly was right…” Walter muttered when he was safe form the hammering rain. A small smile pushed up his cheeks and, for the first time in years, Walter felt an inner peace.

Dear Little Brother,

We miss you every day. I’ll never forget who helped me survive this war and who brought a smile to my cold heart. Thank you for everything. Don’t worry; I’ll be joining you and the others very soon.