WASHINGTON, D.C. (LEX 18) — Vietnam War veterans on this year's Honor Flight made an emotional stop at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, where all 63 participants served during the conflict that defined a generation.
The black granite wall, etched with 58,000 names of fallen service members, served as both a destination and a journey into the past for these veterans. Staff members helped guide them to specific panels, calling out coordinates to locate the names of those who didn't make it home.
"A first cousin was killed in Cambodia. He was shot down, he was a helicopter pilot in Cambodia," said Gary Faulkner, a veteran searching for his relative's name among the thousands etched in stone.
The statistics behind the memorial tell a sobering story. Of the men killed during the Vietnam War, the average age was just 23 years old. Among those who died, 17,000 were married, leaving behind families and futures cut short.
"It is difficult because we lost a lot of good people. And that's, that's difficult," Faulkner said.
Each veteran carried their own memories to the wall. Danny Ison looked for a friend who died just one week before they were supposed to return home. Ison made it back, but the transition wasn't easy.
"I was killing people one day, three days later, I was hugging my mother," Ison said.
These are stories veterans can be reluctant to share but will never forget. Mike Beumel remembered childhood friends.
"Two kids I grew up with, 30 miles apart and they both got an AK in the head, they didn't make it, I can see their faces," Beumel said.
The disconnect between military service and civilian understanding remains a challenge for many veterans.
"Civilians have no idea what we went through. None whatsoever," said Henry Turpin, another veteran on the flight.
For Donald Keck, visiting the wall brought a sense of gratitude and relief.
"I said there's one thing I was proud of, my name is not on that wall, because I had a baby born when I was in Vietnam and she was six-months-old when I got home. All this time and everything that happened, I wondered if I would get home, and I was so proud to get home," Keck said.
Fifty years since the conclusion of the Vietnam War, the memorial has expanded to include the virtual Wall of Faces, further illustrating just how young these service members were when they died.
For the veterans who survived and have now grown older, the experience of visiting together provides comfort.
"It's good to have other people to be able to share with, and that makes it easy, easier to calm things down," Faulkner said.
