Peter T, I haven't been to the Vietnam Memorial but I know the feeling that you describe. Had exactly the same feeling when I visited the memorial museum at Lidice in, what was then, Czechoslovakia. After the Germans had burned the bodies, their widows sifted through the ashes for anything that remained of their men. A couple of buttons for this man, the heel of that man's shoe. A piece of leather belt, part of a bar of soap.

The place was deathly quiet and the horror just mounted as you walked around the display.

I can still feel the tears - just writing about it.

Bert.