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Symbol #6 - A
Green Beret…highly trained in guerilla tactics and airborne
qualified…is wearing the Special Forces Tiger Stripe BDU-battle
dress uniform. His fatigues are green blending with environment,
and he is without helmet…jungle movement needing to be swift and
silent. No badge appears on his uniform. His boots are American,
but may have Vietnamese soles…again for safety in the bush. Our
soldier carries an M-79-40mm Grenade Launcher - new in Vietnam -
and a Colt 45 for personal protection. The Launcher was used for
indirect fire, or firing many rounds like buckshot, or as a small
mortar shooting in an arc over a hill. This Special Forces soldier
is on patrol…knowing he is in a 360-degree war…there was no
'front-line' in Vietnam…the enemy could be all around. His
companions would have been two or three Green Berets, and several
ARVN troops or Montagnards native mountain people.
Symbol #7 - The
shell of a dead man is hard to perceive. His partial body remains,
probably from mine or booby trap explosion, show war's
inevitability. We leave the site with the taste of death…the
reality of war.
LITTLE BOY
MONUMENT
A little boy in bronze freezes these last reflections… He faces
the shattered frame of a steel window…it has been broken.
Physically and metaphorically, he knows and faces his past. He
carries with him precious remnants…his father's uniform and dog
tags. He is deeply proud. He will forever remember…He will not
forget.
The child gazes
through another kind of window…an imaginary view of the future. It
is a vast view…a thoughtful view…envisioned for us as a field of
flowers. Surely this garners hope. After walking the path of the
20th century, and feeling its sad and repetitive violence, one
might feel that hope is rather dim. But it is just at this moment
that hope itself… becomes real and human.
WE AMERICANS
cherish our deep commitment to freedom.
WE AMERICANS have fought hard battles for freedom.
WE AMERICANS hold out the hope to live in peace.
This Monument
presents the little child as the threshold to the future. The
youthful courageous spirit in all of us is called and challenged.
The field of flowers has been named THE PEACE GARDEN. May all of
us find a way to hope and plant that garden.
SILHOUETTE FIGURE
Empty … that is one possible feeling arising out of combat and
war. Our soldier is on his feet…but the spirit is stolen. He is a
silhouette in steel. His body is hollowed…a gateway that others
might go through. His emptiness is quiet ground … ground for a
transformational impetus, a higher plane. The answer must be more
…
At the soldier's
feet is a mound of shoes, helmets and other reminders of lost
friends spent in the vast endeavor. They are not known … they are
unknown…a mark of all the unknown soldiers. And the memories of
all the years and all the battles - however just or necessary -
blow through. The answer must be more …Could it be … no more
war? Peace … but how?
One answer might
be …Quite simply … Remember me.
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