A short walk from the Korean War Veterans Memorial brought me to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial for a quick walk through...
And the approaching planes still continue to distract me...
The Three Soldiers - a bronze statue depicts three soldiers, identifiable as a white American, African American and Hispanic American. They appear to be looking on in solemn tribute at the names of their fallen comrades on the wall ahead...
The Memorial Wall is made up of two 75.21 metre long gabbro walls, which are etched with the names of the servicemen being honored in panels of horizontal rows. The walls are sunken into the ground, with the earth behind them. At the highest tip, the walls are 3.1 metres high...
One wall points toward the Washington Monument, the other in the direction of the Lincoln Memorial - they meet at an angle of 125° 12′...
The wall originally listed 58,191 names when the monument was completed in 1983. As of May 2017, there were now 58,318 names, including eight women. Approximately 1,200 of these names are listed as missing (MIAs, POWs and others)...
Visitors to the memorial began leaving sentimental items at the memorial at its opening. One story claims that this practice began during construction, when a Vietnam veteran threw the Purple Heart his brother received posthumously into the concrete of the memorial's foundation - a Purple Heart is a United States military decoration awarded in the name of the President to those wounded or killed while serving...
Several thousand items are left at the memorial each year. The largest item left at the memorial was a sliding glass storm door with a full-size replica "tiger cage". The door was painted with a scene in Vietnam and the names of POWs and MIAs from the conflict...
Remembering those who fell...
Other items left include a Harley-Davidson motorcycle with the license plate HERO, a plain brown teddy bear etc...
And a plane distracts me again...
