To honor the fallen Published Nov. 2, 2007 By Airman 1st Class Kamaile Chan Public Affairs GOODFELLOW AIR FORCE BASE, Texas -- The Vietnam Veterans Memorial honors the men and women who served and died in the Vietnam War. It is the most visited memorial in Washington D.C. The memorial is located in the Constitution Gardens, near the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial. The wall was designed in 1980 by a student at Yale University, 20-year-old Maya Lin, who submitted her design among 1,421 other entries to be used as the concept for the memorial sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans Fund. Lin's design was very simple with her use of a plain black granite wall sunken 6 feet under the ground. Her design inscribed the names of the more than 58,000 men and women lost during the war into the two polished black granite walls, each extending out 250 feet. The wall is 10 feet at its tallest, ensuring the viewer is able to see every inch of the memorial. A diamond next to a name signifies that person was killed, a cross identifies that person as missing and if a body is identified that cross is circled. Last week a half-size replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, "The Moving Wall," arrived in San Angelo at the historic Fort Concho. This wall travels throughout the U.S. from April through November, spending around a week at each location. The wall was built by several Vietnam Veterans and was displayed for the first time in Tyler, Texas, in October of 1984. The moving wall gives those who are unable to travel the distance to Washington D.C. a chance to honor those men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice. The simplicity in the memorial speaks a thousand times more than any memorial in existence today. Anyone who has the opportunity to view the memorial in D.C or the replica is affected in some way. War is a terrible thing, but in creating a memorial like this, it helps to heal. Facing the reality of war and the fact that it brings death is not easy, but creating a place where people can go to remember the true heroes of our time enables us to pay our respects to those who so selflessly gave their lives so that we may have the freedoms and liberties that we have today. For more information on "The Moving Wall," visit http://www.themovingwall.org.
