Veterans Day 2013 at the National Mall

It was a beautiful, sunny, mild afternoon. I asked a guide about a sculpture I remembered, of nurses helping the wounded. Just then a lady said she was looking for it too....it was part of the Vietnam Memorial so we walked there together ahead of the procession and chatted til we got to the wall and it became too crowded. Here the veterans were very emotional in their brotherhood with each other and some were wiping away tears.

It was the ten year anniversary of the Women's Memorial, nurses were sharing their living histories of caring for the wounded. I could only handle hearing one of these. This particular nurse's stories had the crowd in tears but a minute later she had us laughing. Nothing I'll ever go through compares to what these young people saw in Vietnam. She expressed bitterness at the treatment of the returning soldiers.