the Wall and the paperback directory to
                              perform a search. It was not unusual to spend
                              extended periods of time attempting to assist a vet
                              who could not remember his buddy's real name. In
                              many cases, they knew each other only by
                              nicknames.

                              During the spring of 1995, the day before Memorial
                              Day, a vet who was looking for his buddy,
                              whom he had been told had been killed, arrived at
                              the Memorial. He remembered that his last
                              name began with an "I," a letter in the alphabet that
                              did not have many entries in the directory.
                              We sat on a bench, just down from the information
                              kiosk, and looked through all of the "I's" in an
                              effort to find the name for which he was looking.
                              Nothing sounded familiar to him. He left in a
                              mood that reflected his frustration of the
                              unsuccessful search. As one can well imagine, sitting
                              with
                              someone attempting to find their buddy was not an
                              uncommon experience for a volunteer
                              working at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. There
                              was nothing unusual about this effort. It had
                              become routine.

                              A few hours and many name searches later, another
                              vet came up to try and find his buddy who
                              had been killed after he left Vietnam. As I recall, the
                              last name began with an "R." We began to
                              look for the name, but he wasn't really sure what his
                              name was, all he knew for sure was his
                              nickname. Patience was not with him that day and he
                              chose to leave before we had completed
                              going through the letter of the last name.

                              Time flies when volunteering at the Wall, especially
                              during the holidays. It is both exciting and
                              tiring. I was just about ready to leave as I had been
                              there for over ten hours. As I was walking up
                              from the Wall, I saw the vet I had worked with
                              earlier that day. He asked if I remembered him. I
                              remembered the face and sitting on the bench with
                              him looking through the letter "I." As we were
                              chatting, another vet came up to say something to
                              me. It was the one who was looking for a
                              name beginning with "R." He excused himself to the
                              vet I was speaking with, as he wanted to say
                              goodbye to me.
                              They looked at each other and called
                                each other by nickname. One was the vet
                              we were looking for under the letter "I", and the
                              other was the vet we were looking for under the
                              letter "R." They had found each other, but not on the
                              Wall as they had expected. They found
                              each other alive in the flesh.

                              I walked away as they renewed their friendship
                              knowing that had I not been there to assist in
                              their searches, the timing might not have been right
                              for them to meet that day. On the way
                              back to the kiosk, feeling like all of the blood had
                              been drained from my body, I passed our
                              volunteer coordinator. She asked me what happened,
                              saying that I looked like I had seen a
                              ghost. I felt like I had seen two. It was two weeks
                              before I returned to volunteer.