05/25/2026
The pylons lining the Walk of Honor at the New York City Vietnam Veterans Memorial Plaza in Downtown Manhattan are engraved with the names and ages of those who were killed or MIA during the war. The youngest was a 15 year old kid from Brooklyn who altered his birth certificate to enlist. On the Memorial Wall one can read the words of those who perished or whose lives were altered by the war. It's like being there the very moment those tragic words were written.
Wishing you a peaceful, reflective Memorial Day.
Below is the entirety of a poem that's engraved on that wall.
If you are able, save them a place inside you,
And save one backward glance when you are leaving,
for the places they can no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say you loved them,
though you may, or may not have always.
Take what they have left, and what they have
taught you with their dying, and keep it as your own.
And in that time that when men decide, and feel safe,
to call the war insane, take one moment,
to embrace these gentle heroes you left behind.
— U.S. Army Major Michael Davis O’Donnell, Killed in Action on March 24, 1970
