A Roll Call to Honor Buried Veterans
source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/us/24names.html?hp
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RIVERSIDE, Calif. — For eight days, a constant flow of volunteers has come to Riverside National Cemetery to stand at two lecterns and read the names of all 148,000 military veterans and soldiers buried here. They have read at varied paces in high, low, steady and wavering voices in shifts 24 hours a day.
It is the first such unbroken roll call at any national veterans cemetery in the country, said Michael Nacincik, a spokesman for the National Cemetery Administration in Washington.
The “roll call program” began as an idea by Riverside cemetery staff members, said Gill Gallo, the cemetery’s director. They started asking for volunteers in April.
“So many people responded,” Mr. Gallo said. “We were amazed. It’s theirs now. They made it come to life.”
Mr. Gallo stood in the bright sunlight on Friday morning as volunteers came and went, signing their names on a list and waiting for their turns to read.
When she stood at the lectern, Gwendolyn Goodlett, 63, dedicated her reading to her husband, Elijah Goodlett, a Vietnam veteran who died two years ago. Ms. Goodlett wore a straw hat and alternated reading names with Henry Salazar, 63, at the lectern next to her. Mr. Salazar had been in Vietnam the same year as Ms. Goodlett’s husband, 1967-8, though the two men never met.
“But there’s a comradeship,” said Mr. Salazar, wearing an “M.I.A.-P.O.W.” T-shirt tucked into his jeans. “I feel that when I read these names. It’s healing.”
end of excerpt
Source: The New York Times Online
It is the first such unbroken roll call at any national veterans cemetery in the country, said Michael Nacincik, a spokesman for the National Cemetery Administration in Washington.
The “roll call program” began as an idea by Riverside cemetery staff members, said Gill Gallo, the cemetery’s director. They started asking for volunteers in April.
“So many people responded,” Mr. Gallo said. “We were amazed. It’s theirs now. They made it come to life.”
Mr. Gallo stood in the bright sunlight on Friday morning as volunteers came and went, signing their names on a list and waiting for their turns to read.
When she stood at the lectern, Gwendolyn Goodlett, 63, dedicated her reading to her husband, Elijah Goodlett, a Vietnam veteran who died two years ago. Ms. Goodlett wore a straw hat and alternated reading names with Henry Salazar, 63, at the lectern next to her. Mr. Salazar had been in Vietnam the same year as Ms. Goodlett’s husband, 1967-8, though the two men never met.
“But there’s a comradeship,” said Mr. Salazar, wearing an “M.I.A.-P.O.W.” T-shirt tucked into his jeans. “I feel that when I read these names. It’s healing.”
end of excerpt
Source: The New York Times Online
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