Their survivors braved the cold

I'm standing on a wooden platform. The guy from CNN is behind me, and he's pissed, as I have the best angle. Well, he should have shown up sooner. It's April 16, the wind is gusting to 40MPH, blowing the light rain directly into the lens of my 2-day-old XL2. The audio guy can't seem to find his level, and the signal coming out of the multbox is hot, and I have to ride the pots constantly. It's maybe 40 degrees. I'm wearing a light jacket, and shivering so hard I have to turn the image stablilization on...

But on the stage is the always reliable Jan Scruggs, and it's the ninth annual Vietnam Veterans In Memory Day ceremony. Family and friends of men and women lost to the war, but whose names are not on The Wall, read their names out loud, sometimes with a short message. Agent Orange seems to be the number one killer of these soldiers. It's moving. It's touching. I deliver the tape to the editor up on K street and head back to the set of movie I'm working on. On the way there WTOP starts reporting on the Va Tech shooting, and I realize the CNN guy got pissed for nothing... neither his footage nor mine is going to air tonight.

http://www.vvmf.org