The letters. They come every year for some names, others are one-time memories. But they remember someone on the Vietnam Memorial Wall. And that’s the whole point of the black marble memorial.

Some 400,000 items have been left dating back to even before its 1984 completion when a veteran left his purple heart in the drying cement. Since then, anything and everything has been left from a Christmas tree with photos and letters as ornaments to a motorcycle to flowers.

Each night, Park rangers gather the day’s memories. The perishable items are discarded, the rest sent to the Museum Resource Center. One day, maybe in 2016 when The Education Center at the Wall is supposed to open, the public will see these reminders of 58,286 men and women who died in the war.

And that we’ll never forget them.