In Sharon, Vermont, a quiet little spot off I-89, about an hour shy of Montpelier, sits the Vermont Vietnam Veterans Memorial. I had time to stop so I decided to take look, winding my way through the woods to the parking lot. The Memorial was dedicated in 1982, but by the mid ‘90s the site had fallen into disrepair and was in danger of being closed. An outpouring of community support convinced the governor to keep the site open, and Vermont legislators decided not only to rescue and restore the site, but to make it the center of a “green” rest area, with state-of-the-art renewable energy systems.
Inside the reception center the walls were covered with the history of the Green Mountain State’s involvement in the war, where the young men came from, and how many lost their lives. And there were black-and-white photos taken in 'Nam of sons of Vermont—mostly shots of them in the mundane business of fixing a jeep or eating C-rations from a can.
I walked outside to the monument itself, crossed a short footbridge decorated with American flags, and came to a stone marker where 138 names were carved, the names of 138 young men who traveled across the seas to a land most hadn’t even heard of, and who never came back. Behind the monument a simple white disk lay in the grass, imbedded with the words: “MIA: We Shall Never Forget.”
It was late on a weekday afternoon, and I was the only person there. I sat on a bench for a long while listening to the birds, and the breeze through the trees, then walked across the little footbridge and back through the reception center.
I walked past the photographs of the soldiers and a hot anger gripped my chest at the thought of the cynical empire builders who tossed those young lives away like poker chips. Richard Nixon, whose “Peace with Honor” blather was little more than an attempt to placate his party's hawkish right wing. Robert MacNamara, who went to his grave without expressing any genuine remorse. And Henry Kissinger, who's made a fortune as a pundit and advisor to right-wing governments; to him the fact that the war cost 58,000 young American lives seems like an afterthought. Maybe as you're reading this his wife's flicking a piece of lint off his tuxedo on the way to yet another Manhattan plutocrat cocktail party.
I doubt if any of those men ever saw, or would have cared to see, the words spoken by “Gold Star Mother” Louise Ransom at the memorial’s dedication ceremony in 1982:
TO GRIEVE
We will remember how they
looked the last time we saw them.
We will also remember
the weddings never attended,
the houses never built,
the children never born,
the fields never plowed,
books never written
and the songs never sung.
Charles Coe is author of two books of poetry: “All Sins Forgiven: Poems for my Parents” and “Picnic on the Moon,” both published by Leapfrog Press. His poetry has appeared in a number of literary reviews and anthologies, including Poesis, The Mom Egg, Solstice Literary Review, and Urban Nature. He is the winner of a fellowship in poetry from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Charles’s poems have been set by a number of composers, including Beth Denisch, Julia Carey and Robert Moran. A short film based on his poem “Fortress” is currently in production by filmmaker Roberto Mighty. Charles is co-chair of the Boston Chapter of the National Writers Union, a labor union for freelance writers. He has been selected by the Associates of the Boston Public Library as a “Boston Literary Light for 2014.” His novella, "Spin Cycles," will be published in September by Gemma Media.
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