A Name on the Wall
How a Quiet Moment at Sunrise Etched a Lifetime of Meaning into One Scout’s Heart
The summer of 2001 was supposed to be about badges, hiking boots, and Boy Scout camaraderie. We were headed to the National Scout Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill — excited, exhausted, and unaware just how deeply that trip would shape the rest of my life.
We’d driven all night, packed into buses that reeked of trail mix, sweat, and anticipation. As the sun started to rise, the cityscape of Washington, D.C. came into view. Still shrouded in that early morning haze, we made our first stop: the Iwo Jima Memorial. The light cracked over the horizon just as we crested the hill. The monument stood silent and strong, bathed in golden light. I can still feel that moment — the kind that makes the hair on your neck stand up. That image has never left me.
But it wasn’t the most powerful part of the day.
Not even close.
A little while later, we stood at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Rows of us — teenage boys who’d never known war — shuffled along the black granite wall, some laughing nervously, others tracing names with paper and pencil. I remember standing there, halfway down the wall, looking up. Names above me. Names below. Names I didn’t know, but somehow felt.
And that’s when it happened.
An assistant scoutmaster, someone I barely knew from the other troop bus, came up beside me. He saw the look on my face and simply asked, “You okay?” I nodded. “Can I tell you something?” he asked. I said yes.
He walked me a few feet down, lifted his hand to a name, and said, “He’s the reason I’m here today.”
I looked at him. Confused. “What do you mean?”
He said, “We were driving through a village in Vietnam. A sniper took him out. He was driving that day. If it had been the day before or the day after, it would’ve been me.” His voice didn’t shake. It didn’t have to. The weight in his eyes said everything.
He thanked me for listening. I thanked him for trusting me with the story.
That moment stopped the world.
For a kid from Western PA — that was the first time I truly understood sacrifice. Not from a textbook. Not from a speech. But from a man who lived it.
Later, in the dark of the morning, we stopped at a gas station on the way home. I saw him again. Walked up and said thank you — one more time. He told me he’d tried to share that same story with his own son, but the moment never landed. Too much noise. Too many distractions. “You listened,” he said. “That meant everything.”
And every Memorial Day since, I think of that name on the wall. I wish I’d written it down. I didn’t. But the moment — the feeling — has never left.
Just a few months later, 9/11 would come. And more names would be etched into memorials across this country. More families would live with that same sacrifice. And I think about how we honor those names — not just with parades or flags, but by listening, by remembering, by living lives worthy of what they gave.
We owe them that.
So this Memorial Day, as I stand with my family in small-town Pennsylvania — as we bow our heads and hear taps play — I’ll think of a name I don’t remember. And a man who trusted a teenage kid to carry his story forward.
I’ll remember that moment when time stood still.
And I’ll keep doing what I’ve always promised to do: speak for those who can’t, stand for what’s right, and never forget the cost of our freedom.
Because he didn’t get to come home.
But I did.
And I won't waste it.