Originally published one year ago today, we reprise a very special episode. With audio gathered at a stop on last year’s 26-city tour of The Wall That Heals, we bring you several very personal stories that shed light on why people visit The Wall, the emotions they bring to it, and what happens when an entire community connects with its Vietnam War history.

Drafted out of high school, Alex Walker Jr. arrived in Vietnam in February of 1969 and served for more than a year. In that time he faced unimaginable threats from enemy fire, deadly predators, and a generally hostile environment. In this episode, he recounts those experiences and talks about why his younger self was drawn to danger.

When Lori Goss-Reaves set out to write a book about her father, a U.S. Navy corpsman, she couldn’t have imagined where that process would take her. In Kiss Lori For Me, she celebrates her parents’ inspiring love story and discovers, decades after the fact, the truth about her father’s death on Valentine’s Day 1968.

Deceiving and demotivating an enemy, enlisting and engaging an ally, all of these are necessary in war. You have to get people to do things or to stop doing things. And for that, you need to understand them at a narrative level. Histories, cultures, belief systems… what are you up against, and what facts or fiction can you inject to change or influence it? Major Ray Ambrozak sheds some light on psychological warfare during the Vietnam War.

George Price was instrumental in getting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial’s design unstuck from a morass of politics and controversy. That was a pivotal moment for VVMF, but just a tiny blip on the radar screen of General Price’s remarkable life. In this episode, Jim Knotts sits down with the general to get the rest of his story.

Captain Dale Dye served 20 years in the Marine Corps including three tours and 31 major combat operations in Vietnam. In 1985 he founded Warriors, Inc. to help Hollywood do a better job of depicting American fighting men and women. He has worked with some of the biggest names in the business — Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, and Oliver Stone, among others — and has appeared as an actor in dozens of films, including "Platoon", "Saving Private Ryan", and "Mission: Impossible."

The United States Navy Fighter Weapons School — better known as TOPGUN — was established in 1969. Early TOPGUN graduates fanned out across the Navy’s fighter squadrons to share what they had learned about dogfighting, and the results were dramatic: according to the Navy, its kill-to-loss ratio against the North Vietnamese MiGs saw a sixfold improvement. In this episode you'll hear from a real TOPGUN graduate, a veteran who flew 150 combat missions in Vietnam.

Tony Cordero talks about growing up without his father, realizing in early adulthood that there must be many thousands of other kids who lost their fathers in Vietnam, and creating an all-volunteer non-profit organization, Sons and Daughters in Touch, to connect them with each other.

June is National PTSD Awareness month. Vietnam veterans often have a hard time getting help for this condition, and having someone in their corner can make all the difference in the world. Cyndy Hollender-Stancliff married two Vietnam veterans, both of whom suffered from PTSD. She shares her story of love and support, loss and healing.

In wartime, casualty and injury records are often created (or not created) in moments of absolute, unimaginable chaos. Sometimes the dots just don’t get connected. David Kies is the living embodiment of that phenomenon. He is alive... and his name is on The Wall. In this episode, he tells us what it’s like to do a rubbing of your own name at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.