| Vietnam Memorial Moving Wall offers chance to honor dead.The veterans came
to the Vietnam Memorial Moving Wall in Rancho Cucamonga to remember. They came
to grieve.
Almost 30 years after fighting a war many Americans remember as senseless,
Vietnam veterans came to the wall Saturday to heal.
"This is a beautiful opportunity. I feel better," said Vietnam
veteran Jacob Batiste. "I've seen all these guys waste their lives for
nothing. Innocent people got killed."
The 58-year-old Rancho Cucamonga resident was a third-year student at
Southern University in Louisiana when he served a tour of duty in Vietnam in
1962. When he left Vietnam two years later, he decided not to go home but to
California.
His cousin, John Batiste, never had the chance to make that choice. He died
in the war May 24, 1966.
Batiste had been to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D. C. four
years ago. The experience was overwhelming. Emotions he had denied for years
welled up in his heart - anger, bitterness and sorrow - and prevented him from
finding his cousin's name, or those of friends.
"It was too emotional. I was looking for my company but I didn't
remember their names. I threw that stuff out. It seemed like a nightmare,"
he said.
It was as if the wall's glossy black panels, etched with the names of those
who died or are still missing in action, absorbed Batiste's pain.
Saturday, Batiste was able to find the name of John Batiste. Like other
veterans before and after him, he laid a white piece of paper over his loved
one's name and rubbed a black crayon over the letters' grooves. One for him. One
for John Batiste's family.
"There's something about the wall. I have witnessed personally some of
the strongest men and women I know cry. ... Don't be ashamed," said retired
Col. Jay Vargas - a fellow Vietnam veteran, Medal of Honor recipient, and
director of the state Department of Veterans Affairs - during the opening
ceremony. "It does not mean you're weak. It means you're a proud and loving
and loyal American."
Vargas reinforced a message that veterans and their families needed to hear.
"Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam. Few Americans understood and many opposed
that war, borne of cold military politics. ... Dammit, I disagree. It was our
politicians who lost the war for us," Vargas said. "Welcome home.
Those are two words that Americans should have said a long time ago."
As families and friends drifted out to the wall to find the names of those
they lost but still loved, 50-year-old John Devin sat quietly in the distance
cradling a can of Pepsi in his hands. His gray hair was pulled back in a
ponytail. A silver MIA bracelet bearing the name James Ray was on his right
wrist. He watched quietly as people touched names and moved on.
Devin, a Southern California resident, originally came up with the concept of
the wall. He wanted to share the momentous experience he had in November 1982,
when the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C.
"I had a pretty negative, nasty attitude. I did deny that Vietnam had
affected me. I used to think that maybe 10 percent of the people care and the
other 90 percent were just mindless," Devin said. "I left a good hunk
of anger there that day. I finally saw that people care."
Devin cared, too. He bugged a friend, Gerry Harver, about building a moving
memorial, one that could be taken to cities for those who couldn't get to
Washington, D.C.
"One day he got tired of listening to me. He went in his bedroom, got
$2,000 and he plunked it down in front of me. That's how we started it,"
Devin said.
The going was slow. It took money to build 73 separate aluminum panels. When
pieced together, the moving wall is almost 253 feet long and varies from 6 to
10.2 feet in height. Silk-screened panels bear the names of all 58,209 men who
died or have been labeled as missing or captured.
In 1983, the San Jose City Council offered $16,000 to Devin to complete his
project. The moving wall went up in October 1984 in Tyler, Texas.
"It was pretty powerful. It took us by surprise," Devin said.
The goal was to take the wall to two cities in each state.
"When we started, I thought we'd be done in two years," Devin said.
Almost 15 years later, Devin is still moving across the country with the
wall, which has stopped in 638 American cities.
"I feel real fortunate. I get to see the country in a real unique
way," Devin said. "Now I think 90 percent of the people care."
The Vietnam Memorial Moving Wall can be viewed at Rancho Cucamonga's
Epicenter 24-hours-a-day through noon Thursday. |
