The Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC was dedicated in 1980. The memorial was controversial at the time. Rather than statues of soldiers or proclamations of victory, it is a long granite wall with the names of those killed in the ten years of battle.
My time in Vietnam was 1968 to 1969, the bloodiest years of the war. As a 2nd Lieutenant Field Artillery officer I was assigned to a front-line infantry company as a forward observer. My company was B Company, 2nd of the 7th Cavalry, First Air Cavalry Division.
After my first company commander was killed Captain Barry McCaffrey was assigned to lead us. McCaffrey ultimately rose to the rank of Four-Star General. He hosted our company to Washington on the fifteenth anniversary of the Vietnam Memorial. Early in the morning of Veteran’s Day of that year, 1995, I found myself in front of the wall.
As I located and touched the names of some of the men with whom I had served, tears flowed down my cheeks. I looked left and right, up and down the wall at the 58,000 names, and I was struck with an overwhelming sense of grief and loss. The next day I started writing A Breach of Faith trying to tell the story of the men who fought and died in vain, the men and women who suffered a profound breach of faith.
