After the formal ceremonies at the Wall, I took the advice of Karen Spears Zacharias - "Look at the hands". At the Vietnam Women's Memorial nearby I looked at the hands - and the faces - on nurse's statues....

This man was reading letters.....letters that might have been written by soldiers and airmen - had they lived.  The letters expressed their gratitude for those women who cared for them during their dying moments.

and the faces of some of people nearby. Forty years have gone by and the grief is still right out there on the surface.