Sharp-cut stone touches the heart

To the editor:

Friday's front-page has a story on the coming dedication on a memorial at the Common Pleas Courthouse in Cape Girardeau. The article contains the following comment: "As pretty as it is," veteran Rodger Brown states of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., "it's nothing more than a very large black tombstone with everyone's name who was killed."

Ah, yes. That's the point. As part of my military training, I was immersed in the Vietnamese culture. I read, wrote and spoke the language. I came to know that for 3,000 years the Vietnamese had fought off the Chinese, the French and lastly the Americans. The steamroller that smashed us was not ideology but history. Never forget. Never again.

God bless Maya Lin. Not only did she capture in sharp-cut stone the valor and sacrifice of our most noble warriors, she allowed her spirit to diffuse the granite with a lingering sorrow that all who touch the polished bleakness must then pass from hand to heart.

STEVEN C. PARSONS, Marble Hill, Mo.