My poem is about a vietnam vet's suicide at The Wall in d.c. it happened the morning of the dedication -

It was really sad, because the park service didn't want to let anyone know it happened, so they brought a parks commission station wagon up, one used to transport stuff, and I saw them putting the guy into the back, so as not to attract too much attention; even at 4am, there were a lot of people around the memorial.   They then put up the fences and backed everyone out until the end of the parade. 

They had another wagon there, with replacement tiles, and they were taking up the bloody tiles and putting new ones down, putting down new turf in place of the bloody turf. they had a bunch of park rangers around, to keep people away and keep them from seeing it. they have since replaced the entire walkway with a more permanent one.

officially it didn't happen. they had a dedication of the memorial later that day and didn't want any bad publicity.   no mention was made in the press, either - just another sad moment in a weekend when no one wanted to have sad moments. guess they were afraid of what would happen, with over half a million vietnam vets in town.

later i marched down constitution avenue with two gold star moms on my arms, proud as hell. then when i was standing there at the dedication, i cried like a baby, thinking about him, about us, about the names on The Wall. still do, sometimes. The Wall is a good place to cry. for me, it is my church, my altar, and the names are my own stations of the cross, the walkway past the names my own penance for coming home while they could not.

.....not so bad when you can talk about it with someone. what is bad, and was, for a long time, is that you have these thoughts and you don't understand why you feel the way you do, and then you finally connect with a rap group of other vets and you learn that you are not alone. you're not crazy.

took many years, lots of rap sessions, several trips to D.C. and a lot of time sitting out in the field, looking at The Wall, before i could even go up to it. finally made it, then finally found the names that were most important to me, and i finally touched them. they were my squad. three of us made it from a patrol in a "safe/friendly" ao (area of opns). eleven names. and i haven't ever found the other guys who made it with me."

"vietnam vets account for over 85 thousand unexplained single car and unattended deaths all across the country. trees, bridge abutments, cliffs, pills, the ocean, a bullet. and all of them alone. but the end result is always the same - peace at last. "