INDIANAPOLIS – Under a hot sun a dozen or so veterans, most in their 70s, labored to prepare a place to honor their comrades who never made it home from a distant, long-ago war.
“The Moving Wall,” a ½ scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, will arrive in
Lawrence, Indiana June 22, but before the 70 black panels embossed with 58,228 names of those who lost their lives in the Vietnam War can be displayed, the members of Vietnam Veterans of America Sammy L. Davis Chapter #295 must construct a base into which the panels can be placed.
For two days the septuagenarians labored in the heat. The work was exacting. The base must be completely level and completely straight. Every aspect was carefully supervised by Wallace Vaughn, an Indianapolis nurse who originally aspired to be an engineer.
“I never considered a medical career until I got forced into that career field by the draft, “said Vaughn, who served as a combat medic in an air cavalry unit in Vietnam.
Many of the volunteers are of an age where they have medical conditions that make it difficult, even dangerous to do this kind of work, but there are no complaints.
“Those of us who survived Vietnam owe it to those who didn’t to at least keep their memories alive.,” said Dennis Smalling, President of VVA #295 as he tried to bore a hole into the ground made rock-hard by the ongoing drought into which a support stake will be driven. “It’s the least we can do.”
On June 22 starting at 8 a.m., volunteers will carefully, almost reverently, erect the Wall onto the base they
constructed on June 17 and June 18.
The Wall will remain open to the public 24 hours a day until it is again carefully dismantled on June 25 and loaded onto trucks to be transported to another location where those who fell in Vietnam can be remembered and honored.
During its stay, VVA #295 will hold a dedication ceremony on June 24 at 1 p.m. which will include music by the Crossroads of America Scout Band and a keynote speech by Retired Sgt. 1st Class Sammy L. Davis, the only living Hoosier recipient of the Medal of Honor.
