A Long Night at America’s Wailing Wall

The names boomed out over the Westlake Village cemetery: Macklin, Raymond Louis. Macklin, Ronald Wayne. Macko, Charles. MacLaughlin, Donald C. Jr.

Each reader sat in an open tent on a folding chair, head bowed over a book of the dead, hands inching a straightedge down the columns, intoning each name.

MacNeil, Douglas Gerald. MacNutt, Roger Thomas. Macomb, Orrie E. Jr. Macomber, Clifford F. Jr.

One after another, they read the names of the 58,219 American soldiers who died in Vietnam. It would take 49 hours. I arrived after midnight, after the last of the Fourth of July fireworks had popped and fizzed. The reading at the replica of the Vietnam memorial wall had gone on about 30 hours, with nearly 100 volunteers dropping by for 15 minutes or a half-hour to do their part.

The wall, which was dismantled Tuesday for a trip to Oregon, is 80 yards long and 10 feet tall, about half the size of the shrine in Washington, D.C.

Late at night, it was patrolled by a handful of men in khakis and gray ponytails, men who had squeezed into their old green field jackets. One of them gently asked if I needed help finding a name.

“No thanks,” I said. “Just looking.”

“OK, but if you need some help . . . “

Couples holding hands and a few solitary middle-aged men walked slowly beside the wall, taken both with its vastness--so much death--and its grim detail--so many names, so many kids. They were arranged in chronological order of their deaths, a litany of Americans: Conrad L. Flying Horse, Joseph E. Jackson, Joe Pena Jr., Marion D. LaRosa.

It was a cool night and a sheen of moisture coated the wall. “WE MISS YOU,” someone had written with a fingertip.

Visitors had scattered carnations and remembrances the length of the wall. Some were cryptic, crafted in a code known only to friends. There was an empty bottle of Jim Beam, a knotted string on its neck looping through holes drilled in three quarters. A plastic bag held two cans of Coors Light, one empty and the other unopened.

Someone had taped a bronze combat medal to the wall. “You deserve this more than I do,” read the unsigned note.

There were flags propped against the wall, and thank-you cards, and tributes printed from a hundred home computers:

“Dave Myers was the kind of upperclassman a freshman could count on to dig up tickets to a ‘sold-out’ Penn State game,” wrote an old college buddy. “He could get you a date, grab you a beer, or get you out of a jam with the local cops. He knew them all--he was the kind of local boy whose dad owned the local heating oil company. He was just a regular guy with a family, friends, and a place on the wall.”

Just a regular guy: Most of the regular guys I knew in college didn’t go to Vietnam. Student deferments allowed us to study the sociology of fairy tales while America’s less privileged sons--some of whom were studying things as apparently useless as auto mechanics--were drafted by the hundreds of thousands.

After graduation, there were other possibilities: obscure ailments, the Peace Corps, the National Guard units made famous by Clinton, Quayle and George W. Bush. The playing field was made more level when the draft lottery started in 1969, but for some of the men on the wall, that was too late.

I marched in more than one Vietnam protest. I thought the war served no higher purpose. And, in truth, I was overjoyed when my draft board disqualified me for bad eyesight. But on this night of the names 30 years later, I could only feel small.

I was grateful when the volunteer coordinator in the tent accepted my help.

“Newland, Lonnie Pitts. Newland, Michael Dwaine. Newlin, Melvin Earl. Newman, Allen Truman.”

There for the grace of God, I thought. It wasn’t the most lavish tribute, but I hoped I was pronouncing all their names correctly, and that if one of their mothers or wives or children should be nearby, they would feel a stranger did right by the name on the wall.

At William Brewste Nickerson, I stopped and another reader took over. Later, I looked him up on one of the computers at the site. For the record, Lieut. j.g. Nickerson, USN, of Stamford, Conn., was shot down and lost at sea the day his Vietnam tour commenced: April 22, 1966.

Around 3 a.m., I was chatting with a veteran named D.J. Cooper. He was making rubbings off the wall, one for each of the 12 men in the 173rd Airborne, Brigade Separate, who died when a rocket slammed into their quarters. Cooper was thrown clear, and he said he’s had some problems with that ever since.

We talked for a while.

As we shook hands, he said, “Occasionally it’s real nice to hear a ‘Welcome home.’ ”

Welcome home, I said.

Steve Chawkins is a Times staff writer. His e-mail address is steve.chawkins@latimes.com.