In response to Maryel Barry's letter to the editor in the Jan. 4, 2018, issue about what to tell her African-American daughter about the Appomattox Statue at the intersection of Prince and S. Washington Streets, I suggest she tell her daughter the truth. The statue was erected to remember the Alexandrians who lost their lives in the Civil War. It was erected by their surviving comrades with the support of the Alexandria community and the names of the fallen are inscribed on the base. She might go on to explain to her child that it is a near universal desire of returning soldiers to remember their own and that, in essence, the statue represents that local generation's version of the Viet Nam Wall. Both are memorials of remembrance to those who are gone; neither memorial glorifies the specific war.

Sherry Hulfish Browne

Alexandria