• Help visitors find names on the Wall
• Make rubbings of names on the Wall or help visitors do it
• Be prepared to tell visitors some facts about the Wall
• Help maintain a solemn and dignified environment near the Wall
• "I came to see my son's name" is about the Visitor Guide task.

VISITOR GUIDES SHOULD KNOW

• The order of names on the Wall
• How to make name rubbings
• A few simple facts about the Wall

THE ORDER OF NAMES ON THE WALL

• The East Wall and West Wall are named for the alignment in Washington
• No matter which way a Traveling Wall is set up, the "East Wall" in on the right
• The panels are numbered from 1 in the center to 70 at the ends.
• The names are in the order of death or incident that caused "missing" status.
• Within a given day, the names are listed in alphaetical order.
• The order of names goes down each panel, then to the top of the next panel.
• Lines on each panel are counted from the top.
  
• The last name on the East Wall is on panel E-70, May 28, 1968
• The next name is on the opposite end of the Wall on panel W-70
• The last name on the Wall is at the bottom of panel W-1, next to panel E-1.
• When the Wall was built, there were 5 names on each line. Some now have 6.
  
• If a man died after the war of an injury, his name is put as close as possible to names of others who died the same day.

A FEW FACTS ABOUT  THE WALL

• The Wall in Washington, DC was built in 1982
• There are now 58,261 names on the Wall
• A few names have been added every year since the Wall was built
• The Wall is maintained by the US National Park Service with your tax dollars
• The correct name is Vietnam Veterans Memorial: it is not a "war" memorial
• On the Wall in Washington, the date at the top of panel E-1 is 1959.
• The first casualties are listed on panel E-1 (East), under the 1957 (AVTT Wall)
  
• The date on the bottom of panel W-1 is 1975. Although US involvement in the war ended in 1973, some Marines were killed as South Vietnam fell in 1975.
• More details are available on the web site named  The Virtual Wall®