Stars and Stripes
By Carlos Bongioanni
Published: May 7, 2014
Preparing to cut another name into the black granite of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, engraver Jim Lee carefully positions a stencil and a sandblasting platform at a designated spot on the Washington, D.C., memorial on Friday, May 2, 2014. Carlos Bongioanni/Stars and Stripes
WASHINGTON — Lined row upon row, the names etched on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial’s polished black granite slabs are a somber reminder that more than 58,000 U.S. troops died — or were listed as missing-in-action — as a result of their involvement in the Vietnam War.
Even though the war ended four decades ago, the list continues to grow as Jim Lee and Kirk Bockman find spots to carefully sandblast new names on the memorial.
“It’s a very poignant statement about what war is all about,” Lee said of the wall last week, as the engraver and his business partner prepped a cordoned-off section of what’s known as “the Wall.”
On Sunday, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund will host a ceremony at the memorial in recognition of the 13 veterans whose names they added. Eight veterans listed on the wall as missing will be recognized as having their status changed to “confirmed dead.”
Lee and Bockman came to the memorial in 1986 to add 110 names. The names on the original, dedicated in 1982, came from a Department of Defense master list that planners never intended to update, Lee said. Thinking the follow-up work might be “a one-time deal,” Lee said he asked Jan Scruggs, founder and president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, how long the updating might go on.
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