In downtown San Francisco stands an unusual war memorial looking as it did in the 1920s when it was a hotel and theater. After World War II, Marines wanted a living memorial so they transformed this into a club that, today, honors all vets.
Mary Shea: I look at this building. It’s like a ship that sails every February. That once we’re inside here, we’re safe. We can be ourselves. We don’t have to explain to anybody. It’s sort of a subliminal language that we all understand.
Mary Shea learned the language of loss when her son was killed. It’s a language that cannot be translated and so she and her husband, Bill, felt they could no longer be understood.