A teddy bear left in remembrance of the fallen at the Vietnam Memorial. Seeing all these monuments in one day is a lot to take in, but Vietnam Memorial is the most serious and meditative of the bunch. It sits below the level of the ground so it doesn't really call attention to itself at a distance, and the names are so small and tightly packed on the long long wall that even if you're just casually walking along you can't help realizing what a serious toll the Vietnam war had on American lives. (The names are listed in the order in which the people were killed.) And that toll is still being taken. It just so happened that while we were there, they were adding another name—the name of a soldier who died recently of complications from a wound suffered in Vietnam. (Part of the apparatus for the engraving is shown in the little picture; click to enlarge.) The message of tragic waste of human life is even more poignant at the moment when we're engaged in yet another war which has no clear objective or end, and which could have been avoided. We should have forced George Bush and Dick Cheney to spend a week holding vigil at the Vietnam Memorial before they started this most recent catastrophe. Maybe they would have come to their senses.

Nah, I don't think so, either.