Echo from the Wall

September 10, 1998

My Dear Viet Vet Daddy on The Wall,

   I went to see "Saving Private Ryan." The movie about D-Day, June 6, 1944, by Steven Spielberg, touched me very much.
   The ending was moving: Private Ryan spoke to the soul of Capt. John H. Miller at his grave, whose name inscribed on the white cross at the Omaha Beach, "I hope, Sir, that at least in your eyes, I earned what you all have done [giving up your life] for me." Like other viewers, I could not hold back my tears.
   The white engraved cross on Capt. Miller's grave has haunted me. I see in my heart its reflection on the black granite of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Then I wrote you this poem:

Echo from the Wall

"Please come here, Mr. President,"

the voice echoed from the Viet Veteran Wall,

as Mr. Bill Clinton was passing by,

"How are you doing, sir, after all?"

"Well, I am deep in crisis

because of my female intern."

"Sir, things tend to catch up with you;

the Commander-in-Chief honor you never did earn."

Linh Duy Vo
(The Boy in the Poem)

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