WASHINGTON — Before dawn last Sunday, a group of volunteers from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, joined in what has become a quiet tradition in the nation's capital — cleaning the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

The airmen and one veteran — led by Master Sgt. Trevor Derr, APG section chief of the 736th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron — used mild detergent and soft brushes to carefully scrub the Wall, cleaning off dust and the fingerprints of hundreds of people whose touch provides a link between them and the more than 58,000 fallen men and women from the Vietnam War whose names are engraved there.

"We came down here today to help out, remember the veterans who didn't come home, and clean the wall," said Derr, whose team left Dover at 3:45 a.m. "It's a great chance to honor our vets and, at the same time, broaden our horizons."

Volunteer groups clean the Wall on Saturdays and Sundays between April and November, with permission from the National Park Service.

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