I was unprepared for the effect the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial would have on me. As we approached the low, polished black granite V-shaped wall, between the great memorials to Lincoln and Washington on the Mall. I felt the first wave of effect or shock and grief. I recognized a holy silence of all as we moved past the names, more than 58,000 of them, America's children whose lives were taken by the war in Vietnam. Our faces were reflected in the granite so as we begin to read the names Leroy Pierson, Jimmy Lee Plumley, Edmund Chester Polonski. We, the living, join with the dead. And there were bouquets of yellow rosebuds and a letter laminated to one who had died, Stephen. There were flags, of course, and loved ones rubbing a name. I was unprepared for the effect the memorial would have, a…