As Stephen Rusiniak stood at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., he saw a man in a wheelchair running his fingers over a name. In the New Jersey Record, Rusiniak writes that watching the man remember his son made him cry a bit himself.
He dabbed the tears that were running down his cheeks with his coat sleeve and then again whispered, "My son…" …
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I froze, lost in the moment; so moved by this father's undying love for a son long gone; his emotions; his grief, undiminished after so many years, decades. As a father, I couldn't conceive what that must feel like, or could I?
Quite unexpectedly, I felt tears of my own. I turned away, slightly embarrassed, for just a moment, when suddenly I felt this need to speak with him; to thank him — for his son's sacrifice and his own, but when I turned to do so, he was gone; lost among the crowds of people, who like me had come to view the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C.
Read Stephen Rusiniak's entire piece at the New Jersey Record.
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