After being assembled on Juniper Valley Park’s center ballfields near its Sept. 11, 2001 memorial by volunteers shown in photo 1, the Moving Vietnam Veterans Wall was opened to the public with a ceremony last Friday morning, June 29. Members of the St. Margaret Catholic War Veterans Post 1172 (shown in photo 2) fired off a military salute to the more than 58,000 soldiers who lost their lives in the Vietnam War. Among those who took part in the opening ceremony, as shown in photo 3, were State Sen. Joseph Addabbo, Assemblywomen Margaret Markey and Grace Meng, Assemblymen Andrew Hevesi and Mike Miller, City Council Member Elizabeth Crowley, former State Sen. Serphin Maltese, National President of the Vietnam Veterans of America John Rowan, Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 32 President Paul Narson, Pat Toro of the Vietnam Veterans of America and Redmond Haskins, representing Rep. Bob Turner. All weekend long, residents and veterans came day and night to pay their respects to the fallen soldiers. As they would at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., guests were able to create a paper rubbing of the names engraved on the wall. One of those who did so was Don Graham (shown in photo 5), who copied the name of George M. Bevich Jr. (photo 4), an acquaintance who died in Vietnam in 1966 while serving in the Air Force. The wall was formally closed with a ceremony on Monday morning, during which “Taps” was played as a final tribute to fallen Vietnam War veterans (shown in photo 6).
