I went to The Wall last weekend to take some pictures at sunrise. I knew it wasn't going to be a great day for it (actually wasn't too bad, but the sunrise itself was almost absent, due to cloud cover), but I don't get a whole lot of opportunities to shoot, so I need to take advantage of the ones I can. So I showed up anyway.
And my timing turned out to be pretty good. I did get a couple of shots I was happy with, but what was more interesting was that I was there just as a local veteran's group was showing up to do their monthly clean-up. And at first I thought that just meant a few guys showing up to pick up trash around the memorial. But I was shooting for half an hour or so, and by the time I was leaving, twenty or thirty guys had shown up, and were starting to wash the Wall. In the picture above, you can see one guy bringing the hose over, and they also brought buckets and soap.
It was really cool to see; my dad being a (partially) disabled Vietnam veteran, it almost brought a tear to my eyes. A last thing they could do for their friends.
When I talked to my dad, later in the day, I was surprised he didn't know about the clean up. I had gotten the contact info for one of the organizers, so I gave that to my dad (didn't think to save a copy to post here). But they do it the first Saturday of every month (with occasional gaps due to July Fourth or the Cherry Blossom Festival), meeting at 0630.
So, if you're a writer, show up, and I'm sure you can get some great stories. And if you're not, show up anyway, just to help the cleanup.
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