Every Week, Vietnam War Vets Wash Their Memorial Wall. Today, They Had Powerful Help

By Benny Johnson

"..... Veterans visiting the wall during the Clinton-era began to notice that the traffic to the memorial was increasing, yet it was only being cleaned once a month. It was becoming dingy. These veterans got angry and did something about it. The Washington Post reports:

    In 1998, dissatisfied with the job that the National Park Service was doing and upset that bird droppings had filled in some of the engraved names, Jan Scruggs of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund took action. He handed 37 toothbrushes to visiting vets from Wisconsin, who scrubbed the filth away.

In order to keep the memorial in pristine condition, local veteran groups offered to help with maintenance of the hallowed ground. The Park Service agreed. Now, approximately once every weekend in peak tourist season (spring and summer), a different veteran group or community service will arrive at sunrise, long before the throngs of tourists show up, to wash the wall.

The labor is intensive but in the end, every inch of the 247-foot wall gets sprayed down, scrubbed by hand and polished.

Many of the men and women who show up to clean are veterans themselves, cleaning a memorial built in their honor.

So it was on the morning of Sunday, April 9, when Virginia and Maryland chapters of Rolling Thunder rode into the memorial before sunrise. Clad in leather motorcycle gear with a colorful array of patriotic patches sewn in, a dozen members of the iconic biker club, most of them veterans, readied for an hour of washing and scrubbing the black wall.

Today, however, they had some extra help. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke would be scrubbing alongside them.

Zinke has taken an immersive approach to his new job, which happens to include oversight of America's national parks and monuments. The Secretary rode a horse into the office on his first day, shoveled snow off the Lincoln Memorial steps after a snowstorm, gave stunned tourists a personal tour of the cavernous cathedral beneath the Lincoln Memorial, and has engaged in international sock diplomacy.

Today, the Trump appointee and Navy SEAL continued his hands-on approach to the office by hand-scrubbing the smudges and bird droppings off the Vietnam War Memorial. This Independent Journal Review reporter was invited to watch. Here is what happened:

6:15 a.m ....."

http://ijr.com/2017/04/843688-every-week-vietnam-vets-physically-wash-memorial-wall-today-powerful-help/