As a kid I remember when the Traveling Memorial Wall for the Vietnam War came through Eugene, Oregon. I understood that the memorial was a tribute to the fallen and those who were still missing in action from an era my parents had lived through.

I studied as much as I could about the Vietnam War and those turbulent times in our nation and noted that it took more than 20 years after the Vietnam War for the memorial wall to be built in Washington, D.C. But the war that it stood for seemed to be a world away and so many years ago, before I was born. I just couldn’t fully grasp its significance. I didn’t think I would ever be the one visiting a war memorial with the names of my brothers and sisters on it...