THE WALL THAT HEALS
 

For anyone who will be in the area, the traveling Viet-Nam Memorial Wall will be in Mesquite, Nevada February 10-13th. It will be open 24-hours per day on those dates. This will be only one of two places west of the Mississippi River the wall will be placed this year. The other is in Texas. Mesquite is located on I-15 about 90 miles north of Las Vegas.

Regardless of what you thought about the Viet-Name War this wall pays tribute to the 58,000+ men and women who gave their lives in service to their country. Both it and the original in Washington, DC were created and are maintained with private donations. No tax payer dollars have been spent.

Opening ceremonies will be at 10:00 AM on February 10 and will include a welcome by a Mesquite resident who spent over five years as a POW in Hanoi.

Any who wish to come are welcome and there is no charge.

Thanks for the info for those living in the west.

I've been to the Viet Nam Memorial in Washington and have taken visitors to it also and it is the most memorable memorial that I've visited (outside of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National).

If you have the opportunity to visit it please do - you'll be glad you did.

The memorial in Washington completely closelined me. I've never been so moved by anything.

We had this set up at a county district Junior College in Cook County when it was traveling many years ago. Can't really talk about it. No words to describe. I found at least 6 very good friends up there, and my very best friend from college U of I Chicago '64.

And if you want to locate individual names, you should know their date of death or at least the year.

Thank you.
I passed this on to my sister in California, whose husband served in VietNam.

I'm a VietNam era veteran who's been to the "Wall" in DC, and I've been to the "traveling" wall when it was in Rotterdam NY. I found it almost as moving to see visitors' reactions at the traveling exhibit as the permanent one.

If you have an opportunity to visit either, please do. Thank you for the post, dwooddon.

You're welcome.

I'm going to be helping with security and with providing assistance to visitor's locating names. I have not been to the Wall in DC and I did not have a particularly hard time in Viet-Nam but I'm hoping I'll be able to get through it without any undue emotional displays. Friends have told me it's pretty hard to do, especially when you have friends and buddies on the Wall.

I remember the DC Wall intensely. I walked to it solo in a huge downpour a few years back. My tears surpassed the rain, as I walked and took in the names, alone with the rain and their memory.

Is it coincidence that after reading this post yesterday, then going to a customer location that I see a poster for this exhibit to be in Syracuse NY May 6?

While if you are in Mesquite I know "dwooddon" will welcome you, other readers who won't be nearby might want to look at the schedule to see when the Dignity Memorial® Vietnam Wall Experience™ will be near your town.

http://www.vietnamwallexperience.com/

There might be more than one group doing a "traveling Wall" type exhibit. The one I just posted might NOT be the same as the OP writes of, nor the one I saw before either ... but please don't let that stop you from visiting any of them ... each one I found on Google seem to be non-profit veteran organization sponsored. Thank you (and I don't mean to hijack your thread, dwooddon).

I think that the reason the Vietnam Memorial moves so many people is because it has names of real people on it who died. No other memorial has done this. IMO a memorial without names is just a scupture park. Its an increadible shame that the WWII memorial planners decided not to inscribe names on it. Thousands of people feel this was a lost opportunity and a disappointment. The names of those who served in WWII including my father and uncle are in the "data base" in the visitor's center. My father said "Big woop, a computer". $800 million for statues and a concrete pond.

jorr, I agree with you!

Closing ceremonies were held at today at 3:00 pm with a 4-ship F-18 flyover and a missing man formation. At the opening, closing, and each day at sunset, there was a reading of the names of the Viet-Nam war dead from our area. Very moving.

For those who have not been to either the DC Wall or the traveling Wall, I can't urge you strongly enough to go. For those who served in Viet-Nam or in other combat theatres, it brings emotions to the surace that most of us thought were long buried and really does help the healing process. For those who did not, it brings a sense of the profound committment and loss represented by 68,000+ of our sons and daughters, husbands and wifes, brothers and sisters whose names are carved in that stone.

There is no way to get an accurate count of visitors here in Mesquite. People came and went, some came back multiple times, others only visited once. A conservative estimate is that our little town of 18,000 out in the desert attracted in excess of 50,000 people to the wall in its four day visit. Our guest books showed many people locally and from other area of southern Nevada but it also showed people from all parts of the country and from several foreign countries.