Let's Go Somewhere-11/11/2014 Washington, DC The Wall

Aleathia says:

As a child most of my life was estranged from my father.  I don't know the particular details as the stories my mother told me are different from my father's, but in the end the same feelings resulted.  I spent a lifetime looking out the window waiting for him.  I knew he would come for me.  When I was 10 years old we happened to live in the same town.  We saw each other nearly every day.  He taught me so many things that are still valid and useful to me today.  I cherish those 2 years we had by each other's side.  They were the best two years of my childhood.

When I was 11 he wanted to take me to Washington, DC for Memorial Day.  He is a proud Marine who served in Vietnam and came home to disrespect and hostility.  I always wanted to understand what it was like to be in the war;  I wanted to know because I thought it would make us closer, but he never talked about it.  As an adult, I understand on some small degree that what he must have seen, heard, done, and felt were beyond any comprehension to someone not active in duty.

We took a bus to Washington, DC and got there in the middle of the night...in a rain storm.  We had no hotel reservation, no phone number to find my Uncle Kit, and no place to go.  We walked for miles stopping at each hotel to see if a room was available and several hotel clerks felt sorry for me and let us rest on the couch (sitting up) in the lobby for a little while.  We finally reached the center of the city in the early hours of the morning.  We still had no place to go so we stopped at a park bench and I remember being able to see the White House from that spot.  I slept while my father stayed up to guard me and our stuff.

I woke in the morning to a different understanding of the world.  That day we found my Uncle Kit and stayed at his hotel room.  We went to the wall and I wept at the sight of all those names carved into stone.  All those loved ones lost.  I was thankful at that moment to have been born.  It could have never been.

If you get a chance to see the Wall you must go.  It will crush you and make you proud and give you a monumental understanding of the loss our men gave to serve our country.

Thank you to all the men in my family that have served in the military.  RIP Uncle Kit.  I miss you.