A 240-foot replica of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. was displayed in Memphis last weekend.
The Mid-South Veterans Association and the Memphis Funeral Home sponsored the “Vietnam Wall Experience.”
The display opened Friday, Sept. 21 — which is also National Prisoners of War and Missing In Action Day.
The Experience is a three-quarter size replica of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, including the inscription of all 58,219 names of the soldiers missing in action or killed during the Vietnam War.
The names are inscribed on the wall in the order in which the soldiers died or became missing.
Visitors came from around the area to visit the replica wall and pay their respects to veterans of the Vietnam War.
Volunteers at the site manned the Name Search Information Center as guests took penciled rubbings and pointed out names on the black marble.
Many visitors left flowers, pictures and notes at the base of the wall in remembrance of the fallen soldiers.
One note, in a child’s hand, read, “You weren’t the best and the brightest, you couldn’t even read.
You should not have been there. Your death saved my life. Thank you and God Bless You.”
Five-year-old Hunter Scrivener and his mother, Eileen, visited the site because Hunter’s father is in the military, and they didn’t know if they would have a chance to get to Washington to see the actual memorial.
“Soldiers are important,” said Hunter when asked the lesson he has learned from visiting the site.
“I’m supposed to believe in the American flag,” he said.
Scrivener thinks that more people came out to pay their respects this weekend because of the recent attacks on America.
“It’s our wall, “ said Barry Ryan, a Vietnam Veteran and event organizer.
“When we came back, we didn’t get welcomed, and this is our parade.”
Ryan, president and co-founder of the Vietnam Veterans of America chapter in Memphis, served in Vietnam from 1967 to 1969.
He and many other Mid-South veterans helped set up the wall, and it was evident that it was a meaningful event to them. “I carried panels 14E and 13E,” said Ryan.
“I have seven people on those walls.”
