Social distancing will make this Memorial Day quite different from what we are used to. Sarah Wagner, author of What Remains: Bringing America’s Missing Home from the Vietnam War, shows the way she’s chosen to remember and honor veterans during these challenging times.
Dispatch from DC: Memorial Day weekend in the nation’s capital will be different this year. No motorcycles rumbling around the National Mall, no line snaking in front of the main gates of Arlington National Cemetery as tourists hope for a spot in the Memorial Amphitheater. Unfortunately for them, the cemetery is only open to family pass holders with mandatory face covers in their possession.
The pandemic has changed how the nation will remember its fallen, in the sense that it will keep people physically distant from one another. But that doesn’t mean commemorations and rituals and traditions won’t be shared.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial will host a virtual commemoration, incorporating short videos and written messages submitted by the public. Arlington National Cemetery has pivoted to embrace a “Commemoration through Education” series of online exhibits and educational resources.
For my own part, this year I would have returned to Bayfield, Wisconsin, to visit with friends at the Duwayne Soulier Memorial VFW Post 8239. I would have visited the local gift shop and bookstore, Keeper of the Light, for a book signing event. And I would have had a chance to help commemorate the lives of three men from Bayfield killed in the Vietnam War.
So instead, in honor of their memory, I share this storymap, which chronicles the homecoming of Lance Corporal Merlin Raye Allen.
