Faded by the Georgia heat, Vietnam War memorial wall replica in Columbus has been revived

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington contains perhaps the nation’s most sacred wall, where the names of more than 58,000 U.S. military members who died in the war are etched on the polished black granite.

For 23 years, Houston-based funeral home company Dignity Memorial sponsored a three-quarter-scale replica Vietnam Wall that traveled throughout the United States to allow folks who couldn’t travel to Washington to have a similar experience of mourning and appreciation for the ultimate sacrifice a citizen makes for their country.

The replica wall found a permanent home in 2014, when Dignity donated it to the National Infantry Museum in Columbus, adjacent to Fort Benning, which now is named Fort Moore.

But the replica wall wasn’t granite. First, it was acrylic, then vinyl. Neither proved to be durable enough for the climate as the names faded.

“It just was not able to stand up to the Georgia heat and sun,” Janet Daly, communications director for the National Infantry Museum, told the Ledger-Enquirer. “So the state of Georgia provided us with the funds to replace it with granite.”

That $2.8 million grant in 2022 resulted two years later in the dedication of the new replica wall Friday at the museum.

“We can keep the thousands of Vietnam veterans who can’t make the trip to D.C. coming to our wall,” Daly said, “and now that it’s granite, people are able to do their rubbings on the wall, where previously they were unable to.”

The name of U.S. Army Maj. William F. Callinan is on the wall — at Line 53 of Panel 12E. He was a helicopter pilot, killed in action during the war in 1966.

Callinan died at age 36, leaving a widow with seven children. Columbus resident Margo Truett, who was 8 at the time, is one of them.

After attending Friday’s ceremony, Truett gushed with gratitude for the state grant that turned the faded replica into gleaming granite.

“To have this where it’s a touchstone for my family, to be able to come and see it and rub our hands on the etching of his name, … it means a lot to me that the state recognizes the importance,” she told the Ledger-Enquirer, “not only of my father but the military and Fort Moore being such an important part of who we are.”

The state grant also paid for five additional panels that document the replica wall’s history, including how veterans were treated when they returned from the controversial war.

“We’re telling the story of how their welcome home was received back in the ‘60s, how they really didn’t get their time,” Daly said. “We’re really focusing on creating a home for those veterans.”

During the ceremony, retired Brig. Gen. Pete Jones, president and CEO of the National Infantry Museum Foundation, asked the Vietnam War veterans in the audience to stand.

After the applause subsided, he thanked them for their “courage and tenacity in the jungles of Vietnam” and helping to rebuild the U.S. Army when they returned home.

Then he asked the Gold Star family members to stand. After more applause subsided, Jones thanked them for their presence.

“May God bless you,” he said, “and may God bless America.”

Jones’ predecessor, retired Col. Greg Camp, told the audience how the wall ended up in Columbus.

It initially came in 2010 as part of the Dignity Memorial tour to celebrate the NIM’s first anniversary. During that 18-day stay, the wall attracted thousands of visitors and more than 500 Vietnam War veterans.

“We realized the power of this wall,” Camp said.

In 2014, when NIM leaders learned the wall’s national tour would be finishing, they prepared a presentation and traveled to Houston to convince Dignity Memorial’s leaders to allow them to make a home for the wall at the museum.

Only one slide into the NIM’s presentation, Camp said, the Dignity Memorial leaders said yes.

Even before the five-year lease expired, Dignity Memorial permanently donated the wall to the NIM in 2017. Sapna Hohman, the director of community engagement and social impact for Dignity Memorial, explained why.

“Look at the wall right now,” she told the crowd. “You can see, beyond the names, your own reflection. And that is the coming together of the past and our present.”

The ceremony’s keynote speaker, retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, emphasized how different the present view of Vietnam War veterans is compared to the past.

“Eighty-seven percent of the country now hold Vietnam veterans in high regard,” he said, “as they should.”

In fact, he said, despite 2.6 million Americans actually serving in the Vietnam War zone, 9.5 million Americans claimed during the 1990 census they served there, and 13.8 million claimed during the 2000 census they served there.

“So I just want to welcome home,” McCaffrey said as the crowd laughed, “the many who came home and the few who went.”