The Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall attracted hundreds of observers to Memorial Field in Penndel over the last weekend.
Nearly everyone in attendance wanted to pay respect and honor those fallen and immortalized on the traveling replica of the memorial wall in Washington D.C. Many who came, however, had specific names they wanted to visit while paying respects to the fallen.
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Of the 58,307 names on the wall, 136 of them are names from Bucks County. One hundred thirty three Bucks Countians were killed in action, while three of them remain missing in action, according to event organizers.
Tom Fitzpatrick and his wife came to the site from about 35 minutes away. Living in Fountainville, outside of Doylestown, the travelling wall was a great opportunity for the Navy veteran to pay respect to the those who lost their lives during the Vietnam War. Fitzpatrick served during the Vietnam conflict and has a number of friends listed on the wall.
“Every now and then, you just need to remember who sacrificed for us,” said Fitzpatrick, who has visited the memorial in Washington D.C.
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“We have a few friends who served and stayed and it is just chilling,” explained Jim Mines, a Navy veteran of the Vietnam era.
Nancy Mines, Jim’s wife, had three brothers who served in the Vietnam War. All of them survived the war, but ended up succumbing to different ailments later on.
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“They survived the war, but they really didn’t survive the war,” Nancy Mines explained.
The couple, who lives in Feasterville, has been putting off making the trip to Washington D.C. to see the full monument. With the monument replica coming so close to home, there is no way they could not go. They were honoring a number of people on the wall, but specifically, the couple was looking to honor one of Jim’s friends, whose mother signed him up for the Marines when he was 15.
Not everyone in attendance had direct ties to the wall.
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William Secoolish attended the memorial on Saturday with his family and to honor the veterans and those on the wall, but did not have any direct friends or family involved in the Vietnam War.
During the visit from the memorial, the Penndel-Hulmville Memorial Day Parade, the group bringing the wall to Bucks County, had specialists on hand to help veterans and families dealing with the emotions.
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The traveling wall brought the solemnity and respect of the Vietnam War Memorial into the community so that residents of the area do not need to travel to the nation’s capital city. The memorial was open day and night from Friday morning until Sunday evening.
The three-fifths scale version of the memorial moves by truck all over the country. In the months after the Penndel visit, the wall is set to go to Kentucky, North Carolina and Georgia.
