Candles lit for ‘AV 76,’ fitting end to Veterans Week
Walking across the darkened park to find a table set with dozens of candles flickering to keep back the night, seemed a fitting way to finish a week of activities honoring veterans.
The tealights illuminating small glass jars put out a tiny bit of heat against the cold that enveloped the Palmdale Amphitheater, beneath a golden waning moon. Volunteers and park staff set out the candles to honor the “AV 76.”
The “AV 76” comprise 76 young men whose names are etched on the Antelope Valley’s Mobile Vietnam Memorial Wall. Their names are also inscribed in perpetuity on the National Vietnam Memorial in Washington. Both memorials display the names of the 58,281 Americans killed during the Vietnam war.
At the half-scale tribute memorial built from a grassroots drive of Antelope Valley patriotic people, there is a candlelight vigil following Veterans Day ceremonies.
To honor the “AV 76,” a candle and a small flag with a name on it is handed out to the ones who come out in the cold November night.
My flag informed me that I was honoring David Leigh Burnett, whom I will never know, but am in some way attached to for time to come.
He hailed from a community in this Valley, born, on Dec. 22, 1948, making him four years younger than my older brother. He was killed, on April 5, 1969, so he was not yet old enough to drink a legal beer.
My friends who served in Vietnam, in 1969, each agree that they were the lucky ones who got to come home. One, James Charlton, a successful attorney, was an artillery forward observer with the 1st Infantry Division, the storied “Big Red One.”
Two more, clinical therapist Gerry Rice and retired businessman Mike Bertell, both who served with the renowned 101st Airborne Division. Another was my Cold War Army jumpmaster Stuart Watkins, who was a “Red Beret” advisor to the South Vietnamese Airborne.
All of them were, like David Leigh Burnett, of the “Class of 1969.” And all of them know people whose names are engraved on both, the AV Wall and the National Vietnam Memorial in the nation’s capital.
My candle, yes, a candle in the wind, blew out repeatedly. Life is like that candle — a temporary flicker. My wife Julia managed to keep hers alight, so we made it out to David Leigh Burnett’s place on the wall, at Panel 27 West, Line 15. When we got to his space, the candle remained lit and I felt relieved and grateful.
Those 58,281 names are the reason the memorials came to be. The simple black design, in a pyramidal shape that slopes gently into the earth, was the prize-winning design of sculptor and architecture student Maya Lin.
At the time her design was awarded for the national Vietnam Memorial, many veteran organizations objected, some calling it “a black wall of shame” and things like that. But the wisdom in her design has borne the test of time and history and the Vietnam Memorial is the most visited monument in our nation’s capital.
The reason for that, I think, is the eloquence of the names. As the panels spread like wings, the names are placed in order of the dates those 58,273 men and eight young women were the ones killed in our name, until the killing ended in 1975.
Those candles in the wind flicker as a testament to the precious and temporary nature of life. Having been on the Mall the day the Vietnam Memorial was dedicated more than 40 years ago, I am grateful to have lived long enough to see it so loved and respected right here in my own community.