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There are 154 Medal of Honor recipients on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. One of them is my Fordham Prep’64 classmate, Staff Sargent Bob Murray.

 Recently, my friend Jerry O’Gorman and myself took a road trip to Washington D.C. to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, better known as “The Wall”, to take a rubbing of our classmate Staff Sargent Robert Murray.  Fordham Prep class of ’64. Robert died in Vietnam when he smothered a booby-trap hand grenade with his body to protect the men in his platoon. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his selfless action. I found out that there were 245 Medals of Honor presented during the Vietnam War. There are 58,271 names on the Wall.

I had tried to take the rubbing with tracing paper and a piece of charcoal. It came out a mess. Fortunately, there was a Veteran’s Volunteer who saw our predicament and came over with a ladder, proper tracing paper, and a good rubbing technique. You can see the results above.

There were many people visiting The Wall the day I was there keeping old memories alive. As I looked across the park, I was moved by the three soldiers who would be eternally watching The

Wall in silent tribute. When I went across the park to look at them closer, I could tell that one was as European American, another African American, and the third Hispanic American.

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The close up seems to me to be a true representation of how I remember soldiers looked after patrol in Vietnam.

Nearby is the Vietnam Women’s Memorial. I have a special place in my heart for nurses since my sister, Elisabeth, is an ICU nurse. I also remember my time in the Army hospital in Saigon and how the nurses help me recover from some disease that I had that was like Dengue Fever.

To me this is a very poignant portrayal of a wounded soldier waiting for a rescue helicopter.  The expression on the nurse’s face should remind us all how terrible war is.

There is another grouping of statues nearby. They honor the memory of the Korean War Veterans.

Wearing ponchos on patrol educates the public about the nitty-gritty of a grunt’s life

When I see this statue of the communications enlisted man, I feel his tension knowing he will be the second soldier shot after the lieutenant.

This patrol ends our road trip. But on the way here we pulled in at two New Jersey Turnpike history themed rest plazas. The first honors Alexander Hamilton.

Since the Broadway Rap musical, the name Alexander Hamilton is more widely known then ever. Her at this rest stop, the sign points out that his face ion on the ten-dollar bill and that he was killed in a duel with Aaron Burr.

What the board doesn’t emphasize is that: his son was also killed in a duel; he wrote most of the Federalist Papers; and he was the Secretary of the Treasury who was responsible for finding a way to pay off the $54 million in federal debt and $25 million from state debt accrued from the American Resolution.

The second road plaza is dedicated to Clara Barron.

Travelers should know her name because of her nursing contributions during the Civil War when she tended wounded soldiers. She was also instrumental in obtaining and delivering medical supplies to the surgeons on the battle field. After the war President Lincoln named her General Correspondent for the Friends of Paroled Prisoners.

Her job was to find missing soldiers and tell their families what happened to them. He newly formed Bureau of Records of Missing Men fo the Armies of the United States found over 22,000 men and wrote over 63,000 letters.

She was also responsible for establishing the American Red Cross. There is a monument to her at the Antietam national Battlefield. Unfortunately, I don’t have that image. So, it looks like I will be making another southern tour. This time to photograph Civil War Battlefields.

This road trip traveled up and down the New Jersey Turnpike to the Mall in Washington D.C. Hope you have the opportunity to visit the Vietnam Memorial one day.

By the way, the other New Jersey Turnpike Rest Plazas that honor Jerseyites include: Vince Lombardi, Grover Cleveland, Thomas Edison, Joyce Kilmer, Molly Pitcher, Woodrow Wilson, Richard Stockton, J. Fennimore Cooper, Walt Whitman, and John Fenwick.