Cracks in The Granite Wall (2)

By: James V. Kohl | Published on: May 31, 2018

Photosynthetic Energy Transfer at the Quantum/Classical Border Volume 23, Issue 6, p497–506, June 2018 links God’s creation of the sun’s anti-entropic virucidal energy to RNA-mediated DNA repair.
The link from quantized energy to DNA repair was established during the same time the local news paper in Ellijay, Georgia promoted the eternal significance of the traveling Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Few people will grasp the details that link photosynthesis to carbon fixation and all biodiversity via God’s creation of sunlight and the physiology of pheromone-controlled reproduction. Fewer will compare quantized energy-dependent DNA repair to the failure of Cracks in the Wall to repair themselves. But few who have seen it have failed to grasp the the eternal significance of the traveling Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Used with permission:
‘He never would’ve seen it’ by Mark Millican, Times-Courier (Ellijay, Georgia)
The names. It’s the names that get to you. Why? Within the expanse of The Wall — even the traveling Vietnam Veterans Memorial replica that was escorted by dozens of motorcycles into Ellijay for a visit last week — the names seem to go on forever in a 360-feet span.
It overwhelms the mind to try and realize those tiny names in capital letters represent almost 59,000 mostly young men, and some young women, killed in a war that is remembered in 2018 for ending 50 years ago. There are just too … many … names … on that wall.
In a way, it’s the same — and yet different — from The Wall in Washington, D.C. At our nation’s capitol, we see thousands visit the monolithic memorial each day during good weather. Many of the Vietnam veterans arrive, gray-headed now and perhaps slightly stooped, or in wheelchairs. They stare at the names, searching. Eventually they may trace on a piece of white paper the name of a buddy killed in a firefight or by a mortar or in a helicopter crash, becoming visibly emotional.
Some stand and simply lean on The Wall with their hand over a name, and bow their heads, remembering or praying, and perhaps wondering why their name was spared from being forever etched there. Sons, brothers and the fathers and uncles hardly known who rest on the black granite evoke tears from family members, as well. Gone for half a century, but not forgotten.
When The Wall comes to your town, it’s more personal. As I approached it at the Lions Club Fairgrounds last Saturday, a man stood close to a panel, one hand covering his lowered face, shoulders slightly shaking. He was a neighbor, retired U.S. Marine Ron Wright. I placed my hand on his shoulder and asked, “How’s it going, brother?”
“It’s very emotional,” he replied.
Ron showed me the name of his company commander, William Van Antwerp Jr., from Connecticut, and said there were several more on that panel he knew from the year he served in Vietnam. We walked slowly to the other end of the memorial. Ron searched and found the name of Ronald L. Smith of Hogansville, killed by a mortar. They attended the same high school, and Smith’s younger brother was one of Ron’s schoolmates.
“Every time somebody got killed, I’d get down a little lower,” Ron said of taking cover in the jungle. He shipped out for Vietnam four days before his son was born, and returned stateside two days before his first birthday.
Brian Shedd, an American Legion Rider who’s active in Post 82, has helped get The Wall to Ellijay twice in the last four years during its sojourns around the fruited plain. He said around 3,000 or more people visited the fairgrounds to see The Wall last week, and that volunteers on duty 24 hours a day heard story after story of what having it here meant to veterans, their families and others.
“A Navy UDT (Underwater Demolition Team) member got within 30-40 feet and wouldn’t get any closer,” Shedd recalled. “We sent a couple of grief counselors out to talk to him and he said, ‘I appreciate it, but I want to be alone and don’t want to go any closer to The Wall.’ He’d never been to it.”
One story sticks in his mind, however.
“A gentleman came in a wheelchair the last time it was here,” Shedd began. “He and three or four buddies were planning to go up there (to Washington) to see the real one, and he had a massive heart attack and couldn’t go, because the doctors told him no traveling. So he stayed home and then found out it was coming, and about six weeks after he came here and told us his story — about how there was a brother and five friends on The Wall — I saw his name in the obituaries.
“So if we hadn’t brought it here, he never would’ve seen it. We do it for the veterans, and if we just let one person who would never get up there to see the real one see it here — and it helped them with some closure — it was worth it.”
The Wall being in Ellijay was timely, someone pointed out, as we head into Memorial Day weekend. Shedd related many visitors asked American Legion and Ellijay Lions Club members to bring it back again one day, and he said it’s definitely being considered.
It has been said, “All gave some, but some gave all.” Thanks to all who had a hand in bringing The Wall here again — and all across America — reminding us of that as we solemnly contemplate all those names.

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