My Veteran's Day Tribute

I have been meaning to get this picture scanned in for a long time now. Unfortunately, my parent's scanner has been broken and it doesn't look like it is going to be fixed anytime soon, so I finally took a picture of this picture with a digital camera.

I took it ten years ago when I went with my parents to visit Washington D.C. We went to the Viet Nam memorial.

In this picture is my father touching the name of the man who took over his job while he was on R&R during the Viet Nam war. The man was killed. What gives me a weird feeling is that the names on the Viet Nam memorial are not in alphabetical order, but in the order each person died. So if that man had not taken my dad's place, that would have been my dad's name and I would not exist.

I particularly like that my dad's shadow is thinner, just as he was during the war. It's almost as if his present self was putting his hand on the shoulder of his past self. You can also see the reflection of the Washington monument and my reflection (just my legs) in the picture. In the 8x10 of it, you can actually read all the names on the wall in the picture.

(My dad's left hand looks white because when I snapped the digital picture of the picture the flash reflected there.)

Thanks for your service Dad! And thank you to a man named Michael Gehrt who died in his place.




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