On a side note, I would encourage anyone who hasn't, to consider a trip to visit the Vietnam Memorial.
Although I haven't seen the traveling replica, I wonder if it could begin to evoke as intense an emotional response as seeing the Wall in context. In context-- and it was very much designed in context-- it utterly takes your breath away. The calm, the scope, the depth, the surroundings of national symbols, the quiet private tributes at it's base, the solemn, slightly audible weeping of fellow visitors. It's almost unbearable yet comforting at the same time. The loss feels so personal, the sacrifice so great, the taste of freedom so immediate and real.
I wonder if a road show could do it justice and if anyone who saw the road show first would be ever so slightly cheated upon a first visit to the sacred ground of the actual Wall.
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