WASHINGTON — Lined row upon row, the names etched on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial’s polished black granite slabs are a somber reminder that more than 58,000 U.S. troops died — or were listed as missing-in-action — as a result of their involvement in the Vietnam War.

Even though the war ended four decades ago, the list continues to grow as Jim Lee and Kirk Bockman find spots to carefully sandblast new names on the memorial.

“It’s a very poignant statement about what war is all about,” Lee said of the wall last week, as the engraver and his business partner prepped a cordoned-off section of what’s known as “the Wall.”

On Sunday, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund will host a ceremony at the memorial in recognition of the 13 veterans whose names they added. Eight veterans listed on the wall as missing will be recognized as having their status changed to “confirmed dead.”

Lee and Bockman came to the memorial in 1986 to add 110 names. The names on the original, dedicated in 1982, came from a Department of Defense master list that planners never intended to update, Lee said. Thinking the follow-up work might be “a one-time deal,” Lee said he asked Jan Scruggs, founder and president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, how long the updating might go on.

“He said to me, ‘Jim, plan on it, you’ll be out here doing this when you’re 65.’”

Lee turns 66 in June.

“I just said, ‘Come on, no way. You’ve got to be kidding.’ But it’s true. We’re still out here doing it,” he said.

Even after doing this for 28 years, Lee remembers stories behind some of the names. He recalled one Vietnam veteran who spent 16 years in a coma at a VA hospital before he passed away. Another veteran — whom Lee said had visited the memorial — died after shrapnel lodged inside him from his days in Vietnam broke loose and severed his aorta.

Adding the names is a delicate process.

Precise measurements must be made to ensure letters are lined up, have the right width and are etched into the granite to a depth that matches the etchings already on the monument. If the inscription is too shallow, the new name will stand out. If it’s cut too deeply, the name will lie in shadows.

The letters are burned into the wall as a dust-free sandblasting apparatus is passed over a stencil mounted an adhesive. Aluminum oxide particles shot at high pressure cut into the granite under the stencil. The area around the letters has a rubber material that deflects the particles so the granite beneath the rubber does not get burned. At the same time the rock is being cut, a vacuum system sucks up the debris.

Ensuring that the adhesive holds the stencil in place is critical, Lee said. If the wall gets too hot, it could dry out and weaken the adhesive, causing stencil failure. Coupled with the strong suction of the vacuum system, a weakened adhesive could let the stencil lift up, allowing particles to mar the wall.

“That’s the most terrible thing that could happen,” Lee said, adding that even the slightest error with the sandblaster will cause exposed granite to turn white. “And so, if you have the center of the ‘O’ come off because the wall was too hot, then you have a great big white blob in the middle of a letter.”

At that point, Lee said, “you’ve done damage to the wall.”

Not wanting their company, Engrave Write in Denver, to be the one that “ruins a national memorial,” Lee and Bockman approach their job with the utmost care.

“This is not like most sandblasting. There are people immediately around you,” said Lee who recalled mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters watching him burn the name of their loved one on the wall. “It’s almost performance sandblasting, if you want to call it that.”

Lee said when he first began engraving names on the wall, he didn’t anticipate how important the memorial would become to him.

“It’s taught me a lot. To see what 58,000 names means. The sacrifice is pretty profound.”

Names added in 2014

• Staff Sgt. Jerry Leon Antrich, U.S. Army
  June 20, 1930 – Aug. 10, 1969
  Date of Casualty: Nov. 1, 1967
• Sgt. 1st Class Frederick Joseph Baum, U.S. Army
  Feb. 22, 1930 – Feb. 28, 1971
  Date of Casualty: Unknown
• Pfc. Henry John Drozdowski, Jr., U.S. Army
  March 9, 1947 – April 30, 2011
  Date of Casualty: Jan. 13, 1967
• Spc. 5 Michael Noel Faherty, U.S. Army
  Dec. 30, 1946 – July 25, 1968
  Date of Casualty: Unknown
• Pfc. Gregory Jackson Franklin, U.S. Army
  July 19, 1949 – Feb. 12, 1979
  Date of Casualty: Nov. 27, 1968
• Spc. 4 William Arthur Gabrielsen, U.S. Army
  April 2, 1947 – March 10, 1970
  Date of Casualty: Aug. 12, 1968
• Pfc. Ronald Hall, U.S. Army
  July 20, 1948 – Oct. 2, 1967
  Date of Casualty: Unknown
• Spc. 4 Robert Kroptavich, U.S. Army
  Oct. 26, 1942 – Sept. 10, 1968
  Date of Casualty: Unknown
• Spc. 4 Thomas Charles Littles, U.S. Army
  Nov. 29, 1946 – June 3, 1971
  Date of Casualty: Dec. 28, 1969
• Pfc. Paul Luther Loidolt, U.S. Army
  Aug. 30, 1948 – Feb. 21, 1969
  Date of Casualty: April 4, 1968
• Master Sgt. Walter Hugh Mauldin, U.S. Army
  Sept. 9, 1931 – May 8, 1968
  Date of Casualty: Unknown
• Spc. 4 Alan Leslie Seamans, U.S. Army
  June 10, 1949 – Jan. 25, 1998
  Date of Casualty: Oct. 13, 1967
• Pfc. Danny Joe Wilson, U.S. Army
  July 8, 1944 – Nov. 16, 2012
  Date of Casualty: Aug. 18, 1966

Status changes

• Maj. Howard Vincent Andre, Jr.; USAF; Memphis, Tenn.; Panel 21W, Row 80
• Spc. 5 John Lawrence Burgess; USA; Kingsley, Mich.; Panel 9W, Row 104
• Col. Thomas Wayne Dugan; USAF; Reading, Pa.; Panel 36W, Row 14
• Maj. Louis Fulda Guillermin; USAF; of West Chester, Pa.; Panel 53E, Row 14
• Petty Officer 3rd Class Michael Barry Judd; USN; Cleveland, Ohio; Panel 22E, Row 88
• Lt. Col. Robert Edward Pietsch; USAF; Cleveland, Ohio; Panel 53E, Row 21
• Maj. James Elmo Sizemore, USAF; San Diego, Calif.; Panel 21W, Row 86
• Staff Sgt. Lawrence Woods; USA; Clarksville, Tenn.; Panel 1E, Row 68