(This is a second story about something that occurred during an eighth grade Washington DC trip.)
I was stunned. It couldn’t be me, because well, I was me and that wasn’t.
Walking long the Vietnam War Memorial with a student, I was seeing the magnitude of the wall on my left side but taking in the view of the open area to the right. Suddenly, I halted myself in mid-step.
The student next to me spun quickly and said in a startled voice, “What?”
I remained frozen, then looked at the student and replied, “I think that I just saw my name on the wall.”
The student responded, “Then let’s go find it. Where?”
We both turned, together scanning the names on the wall about head height from the ground, up or down a couple of feet. I had only picked it up in my peripheral vision, but seeing your name is as common as seeing your face. Makes me curious about how easily twins can spot each other in a crowd.
Spotting the name first I could not speak as my finger came to rest right underneath. When I announced that I had found it, the student came over next to me to read.
They asked, “That’s your full name?”
“Yes, but the middle initial is different.”
“Kind of creepy,” came the reply. Made me smile.
Also it made me wonder what I did not know about this person who had my same name. How his parents chose the name, where he lived, what led him to be in the military, whether he was tall or short. Was he athletic, at all a good student, a loyal friend? I know nothing but the name. That is true if people hear my name, his name for the first time. They know nothing.
I figured it was not a relative because he was likely young when he served, most probably did not have kids, and he died before returning. Possibly we might share common relatives in our family tree. As far as I have seen our family research go, no other Dave’s are there.
I found out from the book that there was another with our same name who died in Vietnam. Isn’t it amazing what you don’t know until you find out about it?
Have an enlightening Happy Friday. Consider reading that first of these two posts about DC trips called “Please Learn”
Doc Dave DeWitt 
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