Human Ashes Left At The Vietnam Memorial Find A Not-Final Resting Place
It's nightfall in Washington, D.C., at the end of the evening shift, when the throngs of students on school field trips have slowed to a trickle at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
With a flashlight in one hand and a clear plastic bag in the other, Bob Herendeen walks the length of the austere, black granite wall. The National Park Service ranger surveys the things visitors have left at the memorial: American flags, wreaths, flowers.
On this spring night, there's something else left behind. To the untrained eye it doesn't look like much — a few teaspoons of dirt or ash. But after six years working as a park ranger at the memorial, Herendeen immediately recognizes what it is: human remains.
About once a week, Herendeen says, he comes across scattered human ashes at
