Felton has spent more than 20 years curating the objects left at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. A native to the District and a Vietnam veteran, he says people have come from across the globe to leave mementos. People can see some of the 100,000 items in the collection at the Smithsonian American History museum, where they are part of the exhibit, “The Price of Freedom.” What do you do with the objects left at the memorials?
We do exhibitions. We take care of these objects. We catalog them. We store them.
Why do you think this collection receives so much attention?
We still have a community that is very much alive who was part of that Vietnam experience. … We probably are receiving 5,000, maybe 6,000 objects a year.
What’s the most memorable object you’ve found?
A black beret with the 101st Airborne Division recon insignia affixed to it. There is a note … saying that this person was the lone survivor of an ambush in Vietnam. And after X amount of years — I forget how many years, maybe 20 years — he decided to leave this beret.
What are some of the other items that you’ve found?
We have the only Medal of Honor to be voluntarily returned to the federal government by the recipient.
Have the objects being left at the memorial changed over the years?
The word started getting out that these things weren’t being abandoned … and then I started noticing that people started putting a lot of labor into the offerings. Sometimes they would protect them by means of lamination, or they placed them in crates or shadow boxes. They also became larger and bulkier. … We even have the hood from a racing car. It’s embossed with the First Cavalry Division, United States Army, Vietnam.
As a veteran yourself, have you ever left anything at the Wall?
I never discuss that.
— Rachel Baye
