If you’ve never been to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. before, let me tell you that it is an emotional place.

You’ll see people from all walks of life paying their respects to American service members who paid the ultimate price during the Vietnam War.

The person who wrote this story on Reddit did his best to help out a woman looking for her son’s name on the wall, but eventually he had to move on.

Check out what he had to say in the story below.

Just because I have a uniform on doesn’t mean I work here…

“In 1986 I was in Washington DC during the Memorial Day remembrance as part of a color guard (7th SFG, I looked good).

After the ceremony I had the rest of the day free. My sister was coming into town and wanted to meet me, since I hadn’t seen her in many years.

I told her to meet me by the Three Servicemen Statue at like 2 PM. This was pre-cell phones, so you had to plan ahead.

The place was full of people visiting the nearby Memorial Wall. I was a little early so I ambled over to the wall. This older woman grabbed me by the sleeve and wanted to know where her son’s name was.

He did the right thing and helped her out.

I didn’t really liked being pawed at, but asked what her son’s name was, what year he passed away, etc. Since the names appear in order of passing (he passed away in 1970) he was in the right hand section.

She was pretty insistent that I get a stencil of his name. Remember, this is Memorial Day, in DC at the wall…there was no way anybody was getting close to the wall without waiting for at least an hour.

I really felt for her, she sacrificed her son for our country and she just wanted a stencil of his name.

He had to break the news to her that he couldn’t help her any longer.

I told her I was supposed to meet my sister and that I needed to go because I was already late. She was crestfallen.

I explained I was a tourist, but just happened to be in the Army and in uniform and wasn’t actually working there.

I felt bad for her situation, but I really wanted to see my sister (and her husband), whom I hadn’t seen in almost 4 years.

I did find them, and surprise, she was pregnant. She wanted to surprise me is why she was so insistent we meet.”

Check out what people had to say about this on Reddit.

This person spoke up.

Another individual shared their thoughts.

This Reddit user weighed in.

Another reader spoke up.

This was a pretty sad story, but this soldier did his best.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.