Traveling Vietnam Memorial Wall Visits Peshawbestown

By Pat Stinson
Sun contributor
Three members of the Grand Traverse Band who died during the Vietnam War were honored recently when a traveling replica of the Vietnam Memorial Wall made a July 13-15 visit to nearby Peshawbestown. The Grand Traverse Band sponsored the memorial known as the American Veterans Traveling Tribute (AVTT). Local organizations and individuals volunteered to assist during the visit, which included ceremonies by Band members and veterans, offerings, prayers and the release of a dove.

The mission of AVTT is to honor, respect and remember American soldiers who have died serving the United States. Of more than 3 million Americans who served during the Vietnam War, 58,256 died, more than 1,800 were listed as missing in action and 153,303 were wounded. Names on the wall include those soldiers who died or were listed as missing from 1957 to 1975. Since 1997, the names of 75 more soldiers have been added but are not included in the above counts.
The wall’s black aluminum panels are 8.5 feet tall at their highest point and span 380 feet. Just as they do at the permanent 493-foot granite memorial in Washington, D.C., people leave messages and tributes of flowers, wreaths, feathers and other items of cultural or personal significance next to or at the foot of the traveling wall, which is an 80 percent replica of the original. Some individuals also take rubbings of the names with them to keep as a remembrance.
The traveling memorial also commemorates those who died in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Djibouti, the latter bordered by Ethiopia, Somalia and the Red Sea. Replicas of the soldiers’ dog tags are displayed under glass; each full display case contains 680 tags. In this exhibition, six cases bearing the slogan “Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom” were counted, with the last dog tag recording a death in Iraq on May 31, 2007.
Among other memorial exhibits was a pair of black columns symbolizing the twin towers, and the names of those who died in the towers and in the planes that crashed into them on September 11, 2001, as well as the names of victims of the Pentagon and Pennsylvania crashes.
More information about the traveling wall can be found at www.avtt.org.