Photo Sunday – The Meaning of Sacrifice
This article is from the Archives
The first time I visited the Vietnam Memorial, I was living in Delaware and traveling back from one of my offices in North Carolina. I had seen the sign for the memorial on one of those big highway signs on I-66 many times before, but had never gone into the city to see if for myself.
On this particular Saturday, it was a cold and rainy day and I was feeling a bit, I don’t know, contemplative? On a whim, I took the exit from the beltway and started making my way into Washington D.C.
Life has certain quintessential moments. Moments that you will remember in vivid detail until death takes you by the hand. As I parked the car and closed the door, and looked toward the path that leads toward “The Wall”, I didn’t know that this was about to be one of them.
With a quick spring in my step, I mounted the curb and then the path, thinking that this was going to be a quick in and out. A few pictures and I’d be back in the car and on my way home. But as I took the first few steps toward something that would fundamentally change how I viewed the world, an old man emerged toward me out of the rain.
He was most likely in his seventies and he was wearing a suit. The suit jacket was a bit too tight on him around the center and the button that held it shut was straining to do so. He was slightly bent over and he carried a dark blue umbrella, his ruddy cheeks and bulbous nose, dry underneath.
As I approached to pass, I thought I heard him say something and as I looked up to him, I saw his soft brown eyes were full of tears. In my embarrassment and surprise, I immediately looked away. As I passed him, I heard him utter a sob that I will always remember. It was a sound of utter loss, the single sound the body makes when the soul mourns, in an uncontrollable outburst of emotional loss.
I dared not turn to look, or wonder, or watch. I felt my throat close up. I felt my chin quiver. I quickened my step, trying to put my own rising emotion at his loss, behind me.
As I approached the Wall, I stopped short of it, more in bewilderment than in respect. It was so big. It was so encompassing. It was so stark. Standing in edged black relief against the wet green grass. There was no one there, and for that, I was happy. This was an emotional place. This was a reverred place, and I did not come here to feel. I came here to observe.
As I stood, I heard and then saw two little girls run up behind me in childhood energy, bound up to the wall, where the older of the two stopped dead in her tracks, head back, looking upward at all the names. The littlest of the girls looked up toward the Wall and then at her sister, a look of confusion on her face, and back toward the Wall.
From behind me, their father passed and approached his daughters.
“What is this place Daddy?” the oldest girl asked. Scanning left then right, he drew in his breath and said “This is the Vietnam Memorial, Honey. Each one of these names is the name of someone who died in a war in a country called Vietnam.”
The girls stood for a moment, contemplating, maybe for the first time, the human impact of death on such a large scale. The youngest of the two girls reached up and traced a name with her little finger, then suddenly dropped her arm. The rain was starting to pick up and she she ran to her father, hugging him around the waist and said “I don’t like this place Daddy.”
I too, had an urge to run my finger through the channels of black granite. A part of me wanted to be closer to the men who had given their lives, but the pragmatic, military veteran part of me rebelled at the idea that I should feel any type of emotion for those fallen. War is war. For a brief moment, I wondered how I had escaped their fate, having been in places of war and death myself. Was I worth as much as they? I had not given everything, as they had. In a strange way, that perhaps only a few can understand, I felt cheated. I felt angry. I too had served. I too had risked everything. But I was the one left to mourn them, and thousands more like them.
As I stood, fighting anger, jealousy, bewilderment and sorrow, a few more people came walking down the path to approach the Wall. This helped dispel the intimacy of the connection I felt, and I approached and took the picture above.
I stood for a few more awkward moments and thought that I should head back to my car. I felt that I had not spent enough time here, and that there was something simple yet powerful that I must try to understand, but I thought that I would save it for another day. Perhaps a sunlit one, when there would be a lot of people around.
As I turned, I saw a man and woman and what appeared to be their son. The man was moving briskly, with military precision towards the Wall. He knew where he was going. He had been here before. He marched directly to the wall and his hand went quickly and severely to a name on the wall as he bent to touch it. He lingered for a moment, a slight smile on his face as if in remembrance of a person lost now found.
Then, as I was about to step away, I heard that sound again. The sound the body makes when the soul mourns. An outward, wet rushing of air followed by a quick breath in. An involuntary sob. His right hand went to his face as he went from touching the wall, to using it to hold him up.
His son quickly stepped forward and taking the umbrella from over his own head, shielded his father from the falling rain, as his wife stood by, silently watching her husband as his loss ushered forward.
I don’t know why, I don’t remember doing it, but a part of me that I can’t explain, brought my camera up and snapped the photo above. I have felt bad about it for years. As if I intruded on this mans privacy. As you can see, he is alone in the world. There is only himself and his long departed and lost friend. But I hope, that should he ever see this photo, that he will take away the thought that in “taking” his picture, I was sharing with him, what is my own deep mourning. I felt so close to him at that moment in my life, that I felt a part of him, and it is through this moment in our lives, that I hope that others will understand that war is not just a government run “thing.” It is something much more.
I recently had the opportunity to speak at the 25th anniversary of the Vietnam Memorial, and though it has been years since the last two photo’s were taken, it brought back the same emotion. And just like after leaving the Wall the first time, I wept privately after speaking this last time.
Those of you who come to Twilight Earth regularly, know that it is most often a collection of nature photographs with an environmental message. This weeks article may have surprised you and have you wondering about what this has to do with the environment.
We are a selfish people, and we protect those things we love. We don’t want to lose those things that we love, because those things are what hold us up, they are what bring us joy. Without those things, we don’t feel that joy, and we can not share in the “thing or person that was.” Mourning the loss of something is a selfish, but human way of feeling sorry for ourselves.
I feel a loss when our environment is destroyed, when it is selfishly taken from us. I feel angry that the natural life of the planet is being cut short, and I often feel as if there is nothing I can do about it. But I have found out that though many things in this world may have died as a result of our over consumption, arrogant and consumer lives, there are still area’s to protect.
There is still earth, water and air, that though polluted, will be polluted even more unless people like you and I stand up and say “Enough! I love my family. I love my children. I refuse to lie down and allow you to create an unhealthy world for me and mine!”
I refuse to quietly go into the darkness. I refuse to feel the way I felt, or that man felt, mourning the loss of life being taken away. I refuse to be the unwitting victim in corporation game. I am a fighter. I’ve never gone the way of the crowd and I am no sheep. People die every day as a result of our consumer and polluting ways, and I will continue to try to save as many lives as I can. I will continue to keep up the good fight. I will continue to alter the eco.
I ask you to join us. I ask you to seek and gain the knowledge of what is happening around you, and through you. I ask you to take a good hard look at your lives and the lives of all the others on this planet that we all call “Home” and then make the changes or bring forth the changes that will ensure a sustainable future for us all.
Adam Shake
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