The Michael Berry Show

Not far from here is the statue of the three servicemen

The three fighting boys of Vietnam

It too has majesty and more.

Perhaps you've seen it.

Three rough boys walking together,

looking ahead with a steady gaze.

There's something wounded about them.

A kind of resigned toughness, but there's an unexpected tenderness too.

At first you don't really notice, but then you see it.

The three are touching each other, as if they're supporting each other, helping each other on.

I know that many veterans of Vietnam will gather today, some of them perhaps by the wall, and they're still helping each other

on. They were quite a group, the boys of Vietnam, boys who fought a terrible and vicious war without enough support from home.

Boys who were dodging bullets while we debated the efficacy of the battle.

It was often our poor who fought in that war.

It was the unpampered boys of the working class who picked up the rifles and

went on the march.

They learned not to rely on us.

They learned to rely on each other.

And they were special in another way.

They chose to be faithful. They chose to reject the fashionable

skepticism of their time. They chose to believe and answer the call of duty. They had the wild, wild courage of youth. They seized

...