58,256 Names Pierce Silence at the Wall

He waged a campaign to have those few extra letters chiseled on the Wall, and succeeded a year later. The name was everything he had left, he said. He visits the memorial at least every other year.

"It's a powerful feeling to look at your reflection in the Wall and touch that name," said Cramer, 54. "It's good for my soul to touch that name and tell him I'm trying to live up to it."

He did so again yesterday shortly before the ceremony began, preparing himself to honor his father's name once more. Then he read it. And the list went on.

"Joel D. Coleman"

Kelly Coleman-Rihn was 7 months old when her father was killed, a 21-year-old member of the 1st Cavalry Division 2/7th (Airmobile).

Her mother remarried and changed her last name. Vietnam was rarely mentioned.

When she was 21, Coleman-Rihn began digging into her father's history.

"For the longest time, I hadn't been able to talk about it," she said. "People asked me, 'How can you miss someone you never had?' But that's exactly it. I never had him; that's what I missed the most."

She found a group, Sons and Daughters in Touch, for children of those killed or missing in Vietnam. On Father's Day in 1993, she drove from her home in the Pittsburgh area to meet with group members in Washington, hoping to talk with others about her father.

"But I couldn't even say my dad's name without crying hysterically," said Rihn, 42.

With each new piece of information she has found about him, the importance and meaning of his name has grown. A few months ago, she met a man who told her how her father died, in a surprise attack by a North Vietnamese platoon.

"Me saying his name, it's a way to keep his memory alive," she said. "There's always going to be that hole in your heart, but learning and passing on that knowledge, it helps."

"Donald V. McGregor"

Terry McGregor would rather not have to read the name at all.

"It's a difficult thing and an unfortunate situation," said McGregor, 50. "I'd rather have my dad be here, but since he's not, this is something we do for him."

A few years ago, he participated in one of the three other times the names on the Wall have been read in their entirety.

"It's a powerful thing to read your father's name, with all that it means to you," he said, "and then to hear all the names that follow and realize that each one represents something similar to someone else."

He brought his son to yesterday's reading, both arriving on a red-eye flight from California. Each of them read a full page, about 30 names in all, pausing slightly after each. Then, they stepped aside and let the next person take over, calling out name after name until long after the sky grew dark.