Vietnam.
The size of the memorial and the number of names was enough to cause a moment of silence among a group of 12 and 13 year old girls. Hadley looked at it and said to me, "All of these people died?" I told her, "Yes." Hadley and her classmates reached out and felt the names in the stone. For a brief moment, they got it. They were silent. They forgot about boys and shoes. They read the names and breathed in the history. They walked in a line feeling the memorial and reflecting on the story of the conflict. There was a moment when they understood the importance of the trip to Washington DC. It was a beautiful moment that passed too quickly.