SPOKANE, Wash. – The Travelling Vietnam Wall, a tribute to service and sacrifice, has been set up at the Dwight Merkel Sports Complex. The community is encouraged to visit now through Sunday to pay their respects.
Each name on the wall represents someone who died in the line of duty during the Vietnam War. It is a poignant reminder of the sacrifices made to protect the freedoms enjoyed today.
Navy veteran Bernie Wilhelm was among those visiting on Wednesday.
“There’s a lot of people that don’t have a clue as to what we went through. The life we lived,” Wilhelm said.
Wilhelm shared a personal connection to the wall.
“There’s a name of a Marine by the name of Richard Conklin from Milford, Connecticut. We went to grade school together. He came home in a box in 1969,” he said.
Many veterans, like Wilhelm, find the wall a place of deep emotion and remembrance.
The wall’s presence in Spokane is made possible by the efforts of more than 200 volunteers. Tim Tetz, representing The Wall That Heals, expressed the significance of these stories.
“Those personal stories that you hear, those personal stories that help you get a glimpse of these people, always are those that I cherish each week,” Tetz stated.
The wall, a third-quarter scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, has visited over 800 communities. It features all 58,281 names engraved into its panels.
“And the tears and the stories that you hear from the buddies, talking about – ‘hey, that should’ve been me,’ or ‘we switched out that day. He got in the helicopter and I didn’t,'” Tetz added.
The wall not only brings back emotions but also serves as a painful reminder of how veterans were treated upon returning from Vietnam.
“When we came home, we had been shot at and missed, and garbage and other stuff thrown at us,” Wilhelm recalled.
However, those same veterans advocated for change.
“But the Vietnam vets were the ones who stepped forward and said we are not going to let this be repeated, and my service was better because of it,” Tetz emphasized.
