The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a U.S. national memorial in Washington, D.C., honoring service members of the U.S. armed forces who fought in the Vietnam War. The site is dominated by a black granite wall engraved with the names of those service members who died as a result of their service in Vietnam and Southeast Asia during the war. The wall, completed in 1982, has since been supplemented with the statue The Three Soldiers and the Vietnam Women’s Memorial. The memorial is maintained by the National Park Service and receives around 3 million visitors each year. The Memorial Wall was designed by American architect Maya Lin. In 2007, it was ranked tenth on the “List of America’s Favorite Architecture” by the American Institute of Architects. As a national memorial, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Many recall overwhelming support and participation when the Traveling Vietnam Wall Memorial made a visit to Huntsville in 2004. There were visitors around the clock! The Traveling Memorial was made for the purpose of helping heal and rekindle friendships and to allow people who may not be able to travel to Washington D.C. the opportunity to visit and pay respects. It is an 80% replica of the famous Vietnam Wall in Washington, D.C., measuring 370 feet long and eight feet tall in the center, going down to four feet on the ends. It is complete with six software linked information panels that stand apart from the memorial with bios on some of the 58,320 names on the wall.
The company which operates the traveling wall recently retired the wall to construct a new one and offered HEARTS the opportunity to give a permanent home to the retired memorial. This began an extensive effort involving planning, studies, collaborating, and fundraising. Culminating an effort of several years to make the permanent home possible, approximately 2,000 people attended the dedication on Sunday March 27th.
With no other memorial like it in the region, H.E.A.R.T.S. Veterans Museum Director Tara Burnett and board president Kenneth Lee are excited to finally be able to offer a tribute for veterans and their families to easily access.
Said Burnett, “This is an amazing tribute to not only our fallen from Walker County, but to all our fallen heroes from the Vietnam War. Through many conversations I have had with Vietnam Veterans, this wall has such an important meaning to them. This will give them the opportunity to come and reflect and pay their respects to persons they knew who lost their lives in the war.”
Plans include a memorial garden area near the apex of the wall with a special plaque to honor the fallen from Walker County, as well as a Never Forgotten Garden, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The only empty tomb at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is the Vietnam tomb. The remains originally entombed were identified and the tomb was left empty to represent all of our Missing In Action from the Vietnam War.
Burnett says she is extremely thankful for all the entities, businesses, and individuals who have made donations or provided services to bring the memorial installation to completion. There is still a fundraising need. There will be perpetual care needs for cleaning and upkeep of the memorial. HEARTS also hopes to add benches and landscaping in the near future.
Donations can be made via mail with check or money order (HEARTS Veterans Museum of Texas, 463 State Hwy 75 N., Huntsville, TX 77320), over the phone at (936) 295-5959, in person, or in memory of a loved one. All donations must be specified that they are for the Vietnam Wall project. Veterans Museum of Texas is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.
HEARTS Veterans Museum
The H.E.A.R.T.S. (Helping Every American Remember Through Serving) Veterans Museum was completed and opened on Nov. 11, 2009, after receiving FEMA and Office of Rural and Cultural Affairs grants totaling more than $5.2 million. The museum broke ground on Pearl Harbor Day in 2008. Since then, the museum has acquired a 2 ½ ton truck, a Gamma Goat used by Marines in Vietnam, two vintage jeeps, a Huey H-1 helicopter, a Cobra Attack Helicopter, an F16A Jet Fighter, and an M60A3 Patton Tank. The H.E.A.R.T.S. Veterans Museum also features the Medal of Honor Bike, a motorcycle signed by more than a dozen Medal of Honor recipients. The museum has become a meeting place for veterans from far and wide. Each branch of the military has its own room at the museum. The museum is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is located on Highway 75 close to Interstate 45 in Huntsville.
Vietnam War, (1954–75)
Information from Encyclopedia Britannica
A protracted conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam and its allies in South Vietnam, known as the Viet Cong, against the government of South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. The war was also part of a larger regional conflict (see Indochina wars) and a manifestation of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies.
At the heart of the conflict was the desire of North Vietnam, which had defeated the French colonial administration of Vietnam in 1954, to unify the entire country under a single communist regime modeled after those of the Soviet Union and China. The South Vietnamese government, on the other hand, fought to preserve a Vietnam more closely aligned with the West. U.S. military advisers, present in small numbers throughout the 1950s, were introduced on a large scale beginning in 1961, and active combat units were introduced in 1965. By 1969 more than 500,000 U.S. military personnel were stationed in Vietnam. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union and China poured weapons, supplies, and advisers into the North, which in turn provided support, political direction, and regular combat troops for the campaign in the South. The costs and casualties of the growing war proved too much for the United States to bear, and U.S. combat units were withdrawn by 1973. In 1975 South Vietnam fell to a full-scale invasion by the North.
The human costs of the long conflict were harsh for all involved. Not until 1995 did Vietnam release its official estimate of war dead: as many as 2 million civilians on both sides and some 1.1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters. The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died in the war. In 1982 the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C., inscribed with the names of 57,939 members of U.S. armed forces who had died or were missing as a result of the war. Over the following years, additions to the list have brought the total past 58,200.
