Reprinting some of my favorite columns.

They’re looking for a friend, comrade or relative from the past. The Vietnam Memorial Wall offers that connection.

You can touch the names, feel the person if only in half-inch letters etched in granite. Unlike so many displays, you’re encouraged to touch the wall. Rub their name on a piece of paper to take home.

But how do you find that person? Most people think the names are alphabetical. Actually, they’re chronological of when they died and it starts in the middle.

There are now nearly 58,400 names on the wall. The first names start in the middle, at the top of the east wall, continue to the right’s end, then restart at the left side of the two walls and flow to the middle. It says 1959 at the start, but names from 1957 were added.

Books of names are displayed on both ends of the wall. Names are alphabetical with a section number plus E (east) or W (west) and line number. The west wall is by the Lincoln Memorial, the east wall towards the Washington Monument. As for the line number, there are dots marking every 10 lines so if the person is line 73, count seven dots and then three more lines.

Only those dying directly from combat-related wounds sustained from the war are on the wall. Cancer victims of Agent Orange or and those who died from post traumatic stress suicide aren’t included.

The wall originally included 1,300 who are missing in action or prisoners of war designated by a cross by their name. The number is now on the six hundreds with the crosses converted to a diamond. There are also eight women nurses who were killed in Vietnam, seven in helicopter crashes.

There is now a free iPhone app called The Wall that is excellent for locating names.