A Time for Getting Back in Touch

Under cloudy skies, hundreds of people gathered Saturday to remember the men who died for their country decades before, in a distant war many denounced as pointless.

Mothers who lost sons, sisters who lost brothers, and men who lost comrades walked slowly down the walkway in front of the Moving Wall--a traveling memorial to the 58,219 Americans who died in the Vietnam War.

They did etchings of names, stuck carnations and roses in cracks between panels or threw them on the ground, and left notes for soldiers no longer here. Someone left two Coors Lights for an old friend.

At 11 a.m., a dedication ceremony took place in front of the wall on a grassy lawn at the Pierce Bros. Valley Oaks Memorial Park in Westlake Village.

Veterans from that war and others spoke--sometimes bitterly, sometimes sadly. Some merely read names of men from their platoons or battalions who died.

“Never at any time has any group been so maligned by so many,” said Chaplain Peter Ferreri, who served in Vietnam as a combat chaplain, and who spoke of injured soldiers dying in his arms. “Yet, in spite of it all, the Vietnam veterans stood tall and brave.”

Those who survived the Vietnam War returned home to a country where many mocked their efforts. A lot of vets buried those memories, locking them away, trying to forget.

Like Jim McGrath of Thousand Oaks.

McGrath, 52, was in Vietnam for eight months in 1966. During that time, 90 people from his battalion were killed. He was flown out after he was severely wounded. Decades after he returned from the hot, humid jungles of Southeast Asia he kept his experience to himself.

“For 28 years I never saw a person or talked to a soul,” he said quietly.

McGrath has never been to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. And he had never seen the Moving Wall until it came to Westlake Village. Late Friday night he came alone with his wife, to see if he would be able to take it.

Saturday he stood in front of panel 7 East, and had his wife, Carol, take his picture over and over. The plaque behind him had the names of 12 people in his battalion.

“I feel good about this,” he said. “It makes me feel I am among friends again.”

After the ceremony, volunteers began to read the names of all the Americans who died in Vietnam. Volunteers will continue to read in 15-minute shifts through 8 p.m. Monday, when there will be a candlelight vigil to close the exhibit.

The Moving Wall is a smaller, portable replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. That wall, a simple set of black granite panels, was designed by Maya Ying Lin, then a Yale architecture student.

When veteran John Devitt of San Jose first saw the monument in the nation’s capital, he was so moved that he decided to bring its message of remembrance and healing to Americans who could not travel to Washington.

Devitt and a friend started a project to build the Moving Wall with $2,800 of their own money, and collected an additional $18,000.

Constructed in 1984, the Moving Wall was also designed by Lin. Today three of these replicated walls travel the country.

The Moving Wall is 6 feet high at its vertex, 240 feet long, and composed of 74 aluminum and black glass frames. The 58,219 names engraved on the wall are listed in chronological order by date of casualty.

The exhibit, at Pierce Bros. Valley Oaks Memorial Park in Westlake Village, will be open to the public 24 hours a day through Monday. For directions, or to volunteer to read names, call Pierce Bros. at (805) 495-0837.