The Wall

As I began to write this column I realized that a word has made a drastic change from what it meant earlier in my life to what it means today. In the 1960s and when I was assigned to Berlin in 1970 "the Wall" referred to the Berlin Wall which cut the city of Berlin in half. The western half of the city contained the U.S., the British, and the French sectors while the eastern half of the city was the Soviet sector. Construction of the wall was begun August 31, 1961 and it stood until 1989.

The Berlin Wall was a cruel and deadly structure which divided families and caused the deaths of anyone who tried to cross from communist East Berlin to free West Berlin. With the end of communism and the destruction of the Berlin Wall, the name the "Berlin Wall" went into the history books and took with it the tragedy of its existence.

As communism in Europe reached its peak and began its slow death it was beginning its spread in Southeast Asia. That spread was the justification for the U.S. to fight that spread in Southeast Asia. That fight lasted through the last half of the 1960 until the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975.

The nickname "the Wall" faded until Vietnam Veteran Jan Scruggs began his campaign for a Vietnam memorial wall. Despite conflicts and disagreements, the new Wall was constructed with the first stage completed in 1982. The Vietnam Wall displays the names of more than 58,000 who lost their lives in the Vietnam War and it is the repository of the emotional memories of those who served. Many Vietnam veterans have made the pilgrimage to Washington to visit The Wall. Three million people visit the wall each year.

One terminally ill Vietnam veteran from Southern Illinois has had a request to honor those whose deaths fulfilled their military duty before his own death. Donations and the participation of so many have raised the funds needed to send terminal liver cancer patient Edwin Vega from the Veterans complex in Marion, Ill. to make his visit to see the names of his deceased comrades.

War memorials do not celebrate war; they remind us of the true cost of war and hopefully make war the last option in conflicts.