Candle-lit vigils. Teddy bears and flowers. Prayers and pictures of slaughtered children. Things meant to offer solace to parents and communities in which a massacre of students attending school has occurred. Too little. Too late. Candles burn out. Teddy bears become waterlogged. Flowers wilt. Pictures of smiling faces fade. Something permanent and massive is needed. A wall.

Perhaps modeled after the Vietnam War Memorial, the wall could be built on the National Mall. Somewhere between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. The wall should be engraved with the names of every child killed or wounded in a school shooting since Columbine.

They deserve to have their names memorialized in marble. Told by law and adults that they must attend school, they were killed and maimed while being educated in how to become good Americans privileged to live in a country dedicated to the ideals of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of

happiness.”

But their classrooms became battlefields so it would be fitting that their monument be placed in proximity to those honoring the men and women who fought and died to ensure that their grandchildren and great-grandchildren could flourish in a country dedicated to their safety.

Placed where it could be viewed by millions each year, the wall would not burn out, fall apart, or fade to invisibility but serve in perpetuity as an ever growing acknowledgement that in America, in too many cases, attending school is an act of valor akin to military heroism.

PAUL BRAY,

Alpena