Gold star families, veterans, others gather for Vietnam Wall dedication ceremony

COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL) — On National Vietnam War Veterans Day, what was once a temporary installation became a permanent fixture made to survive for generations to come. A dedication ceremony for the Dignity Memorial Vietnam Wall at the National Infantry Museum was held March 29, in recognition of the completion of a $1 million upgrade.

The 3/4-scale replica of the Vietnam Wall which stands in Washington, D.C. first came to Columbus for an 18-day stint for Memorial Day in 2010. It made the National Infantry Museum (NIM) its temporary home in 2014 and in 2017 officially became a permanent fixture at the museum. Part of ensuring the installation’s longevity included securing funding to remake the panels of the wall in Georgia granite.

“We pledged to you Vietnam veterans that it would eventually become a granite wall,” said retired Col. Greg Camp of the National Infantry Foundation at a dedication ceremony held on March 29.

Camp continued, “It needed to be a wall where you could come up and you could not only read the names of those there, but you could take your fingers across them and you could etch – you could etch their names in a piece of paper and take it home with you.”

Previously, the wall was made of stone which faded over time, then it was replaced with an acrylic replica which allowed names to be seen clearly but didn’t have dimension. It took nearly a year-and-a-half of work to complete the granite upgrade, which includes five additional panels detailing the context of the Vietnam War, aftermath and agencies which took part.

Watch: National Infantry Museum holds dedication ceremony for replica Vietnam Wall

A crowd of nearly 300 gathered for the ceremony. Of them, dozens were Vietnam War veterans, including many who served with McCaffrey in the 82nd Airborne Division during his four combat tours in Vietnam. Members of gold star families – including seven siblings who traveled from as far as Houston, Texas for the ceremony – were also in attendance.

Margo Truett (née Callinan) and her seven siblings Mike Callinan, Tom Callinan, John Callinan, Danny Braski, Pat Braski, Bill Braski and Frank Braski lost their father during the Vietnam War and attended the ceremony. Their father, Maj. William Francis Callinan, a helicopter pilot, was killed in action on Nov. 11, 1966.

“It means so much to mean,” said Truett. “My children, my grandchildren will be here and to have this as a touchstone for my family to be able to come here and to rub our hands on my father’s name, for them to see those pictures there and know that that’s a part of their history as well as our history.”

Also at the ceremony were graduating class members from Echo Company 2-54, who were set to officially end their Infantry OSUT (One Station Unit Training) basic training on Inouye Field following the wall dedication.

For soldiers completing OSUT at Fort Moore, a visit to the NIM is also included. Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the keynote speaker at the dedication, explained the now-permanent Vietnam Wall and adjacent Global War on Terrorism Memorial are important reminders of the gravity of the task young soldiers, many of them no older than 20, have signed up for.

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“They’re stepping forward to commit themselves to something much larger than themselves and they issue a blank check to be patriots that they will serve whenever asked at great personal peril and their families have to sign up for that stance also,” McCaffrey said.

He continued, “We always thought it was extremely important for this Infantry Museum to be a place of education and teaching to make sure they understood what they were part of.”

The faces of the young soldiers reflected on the surface of dark granite containing the names of more than 58,000 U.S. military personnel lost in Vietnam, connecting the memory of those who served then to those who serve today.

For years to come, the Dignity Memorial Vietnam Wall’s granite panels will remain at the NIM to honor the memory of those lost in the war.

Families of the fallen and other museum guests will be able to visit the wall during normal museum operating hours, open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday.

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