The Wall revisited

This morning when I logged into my Flickr account, I found that someone had invited me to contribute my photos of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to a Flickr group for photos taken at the Wall. After I added the photos to the group pool, I looked at some of the pics from the group administrator. I was struck by several in particular, of the Wall with lots of identical flowers lined up at the base. Here are links to a couple of the best ones:

http://flickr.com/photos/lessaweaver/664108443/
http://flickr.com/photos/lessaweaver/664108383/

What was the occasion? Memorial Day? I wondered. I looked at the title of one of the photos. Father's Day Flowers. My son spent Father's Day returning from a camping trip with his dad and me, running around and laughing. But each rose in these pictures represents a child whose father didn't come home, a child for whom Father's Day brings painful memories. I could say a lot more about the senselessness of war, how willing the comfortable and powerful are to send our young people into battle when the cause is questionable and the plan for victory incomplete. But I think I'll just end this post with the hope that we remember the lessons of the present war longer than we remembered the lessons of Vietnam, so that in the future fewer children will spend Father's Day in mourning.