re: #497 reine.de.tout

I’ve got to get some sleep.

But for those of you who remember the Vietnam War, here’s something you might find interesting:
the Virtual Wall.

When you go to the site, click on a state. When it opens, scroll down to the city and the names will appear. Then click on a name. It should show you a picture of the person, or at least their bio and medals, and other pertinent information, including the location of their name on the Wall.

I was a year and a half old when Vietnam ended.

That said, I have to tell you my Vietnam Wall story. I was teaching ESL, middle school. We had this crap series of books, and the reading selection I was testing the kids on was this weird piece that included a section on walls. The Vietnam Memorial was in it, also the fence around Pablo Neruda’s house, and, I think, the Pompeii murals.

One of the essay questions was “Who would you build a monument to, and why?” (I did not write this question. Just to be clear. And ‘monument’ was one of the remarkably useless English vocabulary words this book favored. It was not the most useless. The most useless English vocabulary word in the book was a tie between ‘granary’ and ‘babushka’.)

I pick up the papers. One of my Chinese speakers has written in response to that question: “I would build a monument for (let’s call the gentleman William C. Buckworth, I do not recall his name), because he was brave and fought in the war.”

I pause. I have no idea who the hell William C. Buckworth is. Should I know who William C. Buckworth is? Perhaps he’s some American army guy who was in China during WWII, and the kids learned about him in school? I shrug, grade the answer, and move on.

To the next kid. “I would build a monument for William C. Buckworth and Eric Wiley, because they were so brave to be in a war.”

WHO THE HELL ARE THESE PEOPLE??

I pick up a third paper. “I would build a big monument for William C. Buckworth…”

I’m losing my mind. They’re not cheating, when they cheat they copy word for word. What the hell? Who are these people? Why don’t I know about them? What war? WTF?

Then I have an inspiration, and grab the textbook, which the kids could use for the test.

They have a close-up shot of the Vietnam Memorial. Buckworth and Wiley are the names close enough to read.

The kids hated ambiguous questions about personal opinions and shit. This had made it easy for them.