RSSWhat You Don’t Know About The Vietnam War Memorial
Carl Andrews | June 22, 2009
Last year my wife and I took one-day bus trip to Washington D.C.
This was something we had both always wanted to do, and when we can manage to find the time we want to go again.
It is truly humbling to visit some of the memorials in our nation’s capitol.
High on the list of the things we were determined to see was the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall.
We weren’t on a guided tour so we were pretty much left to our own devices.
And as we arrived at the memorial, we just happened to overhear a tour guide telling a group of people some of the history behind the memorial.
I knew that for years people have left behind letters, flowers, pictures, even cartons of cigarettes and bottles of whiskey.
What I didn’t know was that everything that is left at the wall is kept at a government warehouse, cataloged by when it was left there.
And I thought that was quite respectful.
I was about to turn away when a woman happened to ask the tour guide a question that, the response to which, quite frankly, brought a tear to my eye.
The woman asked “What is the most unusual thing that was ever left here?”
And the tour guide, who’s voice changed to a reverent tone replied:
“We showed up here one morning to find a brand-new Harley-Davidson motorcycle sitting upright right in the front of the wall.
All of us who work here were used to seeing some unusual items, but this was the only time any of us had seen something like this.
Eventually, through tracing the origins of the motorcycle through it’s serial numbers, we found it had been purchased by a bikers club composed entirely of Vietnam vets.
We managed to contact the head of the club and asked how the bike came to be here.”
And he told us “A lot of the guys who died in ‘Nam loved to ride.
So we all chipped in and did this in case somehow one of them came by, there would be a bike for him to use.”
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