A Tribute--and a Disservice

Click on a soldier, and you can find out who he is, where he’s from and how he died.

Computer war game aficionados will recognize that scenario--there are plenty of shoot-’em-up entertainments that offer you the chance to command a fighting force.

But this new CD-ROM is no game. It’s “Beyond the Wall,” a disturbing, evocative, hauntingly beautiful and, unfortunately, terribly flawed exploration of this country’s involvement in the Vietnam War. At its heart is a database version of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., that gives you access to information about each of the more than 58,000 Americans who died during our involvement in that conflict.

The parts of the disk--created by Magnet Interactive Studios for release in Windows and Macintosh versions next month at a list price of $49.98--that deal primarily with the Wall itself are extremely well done. After a short video clip, “Beyond the Wall” opens with an overhead view of the memorial, which sits in a V-shaped trough dug into the Federal Mall. From your speakers comes the sound of the ambient background, including birds, that helps provide a peaceful, contemplative setting for this experience.

You are given several choices as to where to go next. Click on “Names” and you enter the database. Here, on a superbly rendered depiction of one of the black granite panels of the memorial, you can enter the name of someone you know who died during the war to get the soldier’s birth date, service affiliation, age at time of death, hometown, rank and “date of casualty.” You are also shown where on the Wall that soldier’s name appears.

You can search through the database in a variety of ways. Enter a last name, and you will get a list of everyone on the Wall with that name. Enter a town, and you get everyone from that town who died during the war.

The experience of viewing the names cannot match the overwhelming experience of seeing those reflective, granite tablets in person. But the CD-ROM--the first in what Magnet calls its living history series--provides an emotional impact in a different way. Click on the “Tour the Wall” section, and you are given the opportunity to explore in far more depth the lives of about 20 soldiers.

For William Edward Codero, one of the few Latino Air Force officers at the time, there are snapshots of him with his squadron, a happy-birthday letter he wrote from Vietnam to his 3-year-old son and a picture of his family members at his grave site. For Robert N. Smith, who was in the Marines, there is a clip from a home movie of him playing with his children. For Richard Van De Geer, the last American soldier to die during the war, there are audio clips from a tape-cassette letter he sent home and the letter from then-President Gerald Ford expressing sympathies to the family.

In addition, this “Tour the Wall” section includes depictions of some of the numerous items left at the memorial by visitors, including pictures, letters, toys and parts of uniforms. One of the most heart-wrenching of these is the picture of a Vietnamese woman left at the wall by an unknown veteran who found the photo on the body of a North Vietnamese soldier he had shot. In a short, eloquent note, the veteran grieves for this man whose name he does not know and the woman he left behind.

This section--which is set in a truly inspired, collage-like design--is indeed one of the most powerful uses of interactive, multimedia to date.

It’s unfortunate that the creators of “Beyond the Wall” did not include more of these materials instead of the “About the War” section that attempts to put the conflict in a historical and political context.

Here is where “Beyond the Wall” fails. In this entire section, there is almost no mention of the stateside debate about the war that so rocked this nation. There are plenty of official announcements from politicians, including Lyndon B. Johnson, but I found no pictures or video of the widespread, massive protests against American involvement. I could also find no mention of the Pentagon Papers, which exposed the misrepresentations behind some of the political statements depicted in the video.

It’s a disservice to history and to the soldiers who fought and died during the war to present such an incomplete and distorted view of those turbulent years.

In the end, “Beyond the Wall” redeems itself. When you quit the program, the final screen shows the current date (provided by your computer’s internal clock) and underneath that, a simple listing of three American soldiers who died on that day during the war.

Like the best of this CD-ROM, it’s an eloquent memorial to those whose lives were snuffed out 20 and more years ago, and it’s a reminder of the horrors of war.

* Cyburbia’s Internet address is David.Colker@latimes.com.