The Wall, Washington D.C.

I don't believe in ghosts in the classic sense, but I have had some personal supernatural experiences and premonitions that occur every now and then. For example; I will be sitting in the living room watching TV with my wife, and all of a sudden, in my head, I hear my fire pager going off. Not for any specific call dispatch details, just the pager going off. Two seconds later, the pager goes off for real. Once or twice... OK a coincidence. But it has happened many times over the years with no explanation (not that I ever sought one). Or, while returning from the hospital in the ambulance, I hear dispatch calling us in my head, and sure enough two seconds later they are calling us for real over the radio. Prior to the onboard GPS locations they have for us now, they would be asking our location to see if we can handle another call. It really catches people off guard when I say "Bless You!" seconds before someone sneezes and there were no physical clues they were about to sneeze. I heard them sneeze in my head.

I have had dreams about deceased family members that were so vivid I was emotionally charged when I woke up from them. In one from before my Dad passed in 2018, I had my long ago car, a 1970 Chevy Impala parked in St. Michael's Cemetery in Springfield, MA where my uncle Eddie is buried. Uncle Eddie looked just like he did when I had that car in the early 1980's, and he came walking across the cemetery to where I was parked. I was leaning on the passenger fender watching him approach. With the big shit eatin' grin he always had on he tells me, "Say hello to your Father for me." In the background nearby was my maternal Grandfather who was also Eddie's uncle that remained silent. My Papa is buried across town at St. Aloysius cemetery, not at St. Michael's. Like I said, when I awoke I was awash in emotion. Well, I obliged Uncle Eddie the next time I saw my Dad. We were seated at the holiday dinner table at my house and I was sitting next to Dad. I turned to him and said "I have a message for you. Uncle Eddie says hello." I felt stupid saying it in front of everyone, but I could not help myself, I felt like I was supposed to. Everyone looked at me like I had two heads, but I explained the whole thing and that was that. I have had other dream "visitations" from my Mom and my paternal grandparents but they were more like just dreams. With my paternal Grandparents, I was a young kid of maybe 10 or 12 and we were at their house gathered around the dining room table. That never happened, because my Pepere' died when I was three, and when I was about the age in my dream my Memere' had sold the house and moved into senior housing.

So now the meat of this page. My fire department attends the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Weekend at the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, MD every year. I haven't been since 2015. We would be down there for several days traveling down on a Thursday. The Chief would buy everyone dinner on Thursday night and we would play cards, drink, and smoke cigars afterward. Friday was a day to do tourist type stuff and I (as Company Captain) would buy lunch for everyone. We had been to Gettysburg, Antietam, the Air & Space Museum, etc. In 2010 we went to D.C. to visit all the war memorials because The WWII Memorial was brand new. But we hit the others, too. This page has to do specifically with the Viet Nam War Memorial, known as "The Wall."

 

I had never seen it before. It is a black stone wall with the 58,276 names placed  on many panels in the order they died. To find a specific name you need to look it up on a list. When I was there in 2010, there were many bound books with weatherproof laminated pages on podiums. You waited for one to free up and took your turn to look up a name. The entry told you exactly where to find the name on the wall. I only knew of one name... Whitney T. Ferguson III

Whitney T. Ferguson III's name is on Panel 29W, Line 7

Whitney T. Ferguson III. KIA in Tay Ninh Province on 03/11/1969

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before I lived where I do now, I lived in Vernon for 16 years. My daughter grew up there and we had family there. Whitney T. Ferguson III was the only person from the town to be killed in Viet Nam. There is an athletic field and a road in town named after him, and friends of mine from town that were also Viet Nam vets grew up with him. I wanted to find his name.

As you can see from the first picture, there were many visitors there that day. I had to wait in line to look up Whitney's name. There was one line for all the books and finally a book became free when I was next in line.

The book was open left open from the previous person. The names are listed in the books alphabetically Last Name, First Name, M.I. So I needed "F" for Ferguson. Bingo, the book was open to "F" I start looking at the entries and all of a sudden, I am looking at his name. Of 58,276 names on that wall, the one book of many that I ended up at, was left open to the exact page with the name of the person I was there to honor. I immediately felt very strange, in a way I can't explain. I got away from the book and set out to get busy finding his name. The particular panel Whitney's name is on is at the top of a very tall full size panel because he was killed at the height of the war in the early part of 1969. To get the photo of his name took several tries of me standing on tip-toe holding my camera as high as I could and snapping the photo blindly. I would then check it, erase it, and try again, finally getting what you see here.

This bronze statue is also part of the Viet Nam War Memorial. The detail is fantastic.

There is also this bronze statue dedicated to the nurses

And a closeup