Defining the limits of a discussion can be as important as having it in the first place. Last night I spoke to a group of volunteers for a project involving the “Moving Wall” Memorial to Viet Nam Veterans. Just the mention of the term ‘Viet Nam’ can still bring people to the edge of immediate verbal and even physical confrontation. I know this personally as a veteran from that era. I agonized over what to say and more importantly as a speaker, how to say it.

A day before the presentation I finally found my solution. I needed to acknowledge the strong emotions that are still associated with the Viet Nam era and then clearly define for all involved what the “Moving Wall” Memorial is about. The “Celebration of Heroes”, as the community event is being called, isn’t about the war. It isn’t about whether it was right or wrong. It isn’t about whether it was good or bad. It’s not about ANY of that.

It’s about those 58,228 who died, those 303,400 who were wounded, those 2,600,000 whose boots touched South Vietnam’s soil, those 9,087,000 who served during that era. It’s about honoring the dead and understanding the pain of the living. Those who served, those who had family members or friends who served, those whose lives were forever changed and still affected by that time in our history.

As I defined the discussion in this manner we found that we had much more common ground, even hallowed ground, than we had imagined.

I suspect that the same is true with most of the discussions we have. The process of defining the discussion is not an easy one, but it is critical if we are ever to make progress on any topic. Fortunately most of the topics we agonize over as community or economic development issues aren’t tainted with the depth of passion that still surrounds Viet Nam.

If we take the time to clearly define the discussion, we are well on our way to having a productive one. And that is indeed, ‘hallowed ground’.