Throughout America, there are memorials that are silent storytellers. They are not water, metal, or stones but memory sites that enable us to stop, recall, and touch the past in a very human way. They remind us that behind every war or disaster, there are families, lives, and communities forever altered. Best put, at least, is Washington, D.C.'s Vietnam Veterans Memorial by Maya Lin and finished in 1982. The memorial is minimalist: two black granite walls inscribed with the names of over 58,000 dead servicemen. Unlike the commemorative monuments to generals or the paintings of battle, this wall force one to confront the extent of individual sacrifice. You stand before it, reading name by name, and seeing that each and every one of them had been a human being who had lived and laughed and dreamed. There are flowers placed by many visitors, fingers placed on the names, or mementos of memory placed, so the site is a dialogue between the dead and the living. The same themes are repeate...