The Wall is an incredibly moving experience. Over 2/3 of those remembered on the Wall were less than 22 years old. Over half were only 18. Afraid I don’t know any of their names. I worked in the emergency room most of my time in northern Thailand. The major losses were to our east but of course there were plenty of operations in Cambodia and Laos that originated from Thailand. Air America staged a lot of ops in the Plain of Jars region which brought casualties into our hospital. We’d occasionally recover one of our F4 pilots whose plane couldn’t make it back. Remember looking up at the lumbering B52’s out of Bangkok and thinking about their crews, especially when SAM’s became more of a threat. A big Sikorsky S-64E Skycrane crashed placing some radar equipment to our north, couple of the guys survived thankfully. In an old ambulance I brought in a young airman from town who died from a drug overdose, his death no more senseless than the others. We had good surgeons and no doubt many of those who passed through our emergency room made it on to the surgical ward. We didn’t try to follow up on them because there were more the next day, mostly Laotians hired to fight by Air America. Not sure how many faces I do recall are connected to names on the wall, more than a few I suspect but nothing like if I had served in Vietnam. I do know that no matter how ill-conceived and mismanaged the war was they all died in service to their country. To see family and friends tracing names from the Wall is something that you’ll never forget.
Looking forward to returning to DC so I can see the WWII memorial. The world can never repay the debt owed them. They will always be The Greatest Generation. God bless all of our servicemen and their families.
If in DC by all means, go to Arlington and see the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. There is a symbolism there that I cannot begin to describe.
https://imgur.com/gallery/GjIwByb