Please, No Human Remains At Vietnam Wall: National Parks

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Since the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall's dedication in 1982, visitors have left nearly half a million items there. The National Park Service encourages this, but has a request: Don't leave human remains at the Wall.

The reason is simple. The National Park Service is "not equipped for the long-term disposition of human remains as a cemetery or mausoleum," Mike Litterst, communications chief for the NPS National Mall and Memorial Parks, told Patch.

Litterst said that since 1982, when the memorial was dedicated, visitors have left over 400,000 items. These objects are collected by the NPS and brought into the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Collection, though not every memento people leave makes the cut. They've got to meet some standards.

Items which "provide a direct connection to the soldiers listed on the memorial, have a discernible connection to their service in the Vietnam War, and provide context for a better understanding of the many aspects of the Vietnam War and its veterans," are brought into the collection, Litterst said.

Litterst told WTOP that they ask people not to leave human remains, noting that the number of human remains left at the Wall has increased lately. That is possibly due to 2018 being the anniversary of a particularly brutal event in the Vietnam War.

The Tet Offensive - Jan. 30, 1968

On this day in 1968, 80,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops launched a massive assault on U.S. and South Vietnamese targets all over the country. The highly coordinated, simultaneous assault, which resulted in months of heavy battle in certain areas, accounted for thousands of the American names on the Memorial Wall.

While the NPS doesn't want visitors leaving human remains, mostly cremated ashes, at the Wall, workers are doing their best to treat the remains with respect. They're being stored at the Museum Resource Center "while we determine a dignified, appropriate solution," Litterst said.

Here's the National Park Service's Scope of Collection Statement, outlining the specifics of their collection policy.

The collection has a massive range of items, from objects directly relating to the Vietnam War and those who fought in it, to items symbolizing protest and activism and public tributes to items of historical significance.

Part of the collection's purpose is to contain items left at the Wall, so anything mailed to the NPS with the purpose of being added to the collection will be rejected.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars, the national organization for veterans who've deployed to combat zones, understands both sides of the coin. Joe Davis, the VFW's communications director, said they recognize the Wall's significance to people in terms of "healing and remembrance," but doesn't condone people breaking any law.

"The VFW national organization cannot approve of anyone breaking the law," Davis said, adding that they recognize the reasons NPS bans leaving human remains. But, for those who want to leave remains, "we can acknowledge their reasons why."

"Many veterans and their family want ashes spread," at the Wall, Davis said. "The vets want to be reunited with those who they remember as 'forever young,' who laid down their lives in Vietnam, and to ease their pain that time cannot heal."

Article image Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press