DECATUR, Texas — The Wise County Fairgrounds in Decatur is hallowed ground for the next five days as it hosts the largest traveling replica of the Vietnam War Memorial.
The display, "The Cost of Freedom Tribute," arrived in Decatur Tuesday afternoon accompanied by a motorcade of veteran motorcycle groups. Veteran volunteers spent several hours installing the memorial wall to have it ready for National Vietnam War Veterans Memorial Day on March 29.
A 2 p.m. ceremony Wednesday will begin its five-day stay in Wise County.
Vietnam Veteran Al Westfall, Commander of the Wise County Veterans Group, arranged to bring the tribute here.
“Boots on the ground, trying to stay alive,” he said of his arrival in Vietnam on New Year’s Day 1971. He sought out the scale replica for the impact he hopes it will have in Wise County.
At 360 feet long, eight feet high at its apex, and bearing all of the more than 58,000 names of American Vietnam War dead, it is the largest traveling replica of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C.
“I have classmates, old friends, and even a cousin,” Westfall said.
“So, this is near and dear to you,” I asked him.
“It has been for a number of years,” he said.
And as veteran volunteers helped piece the replica together Wednesday afternoon, they stared at the names of those old friends.
“The 7th Engineering Battalion, 1st Marine Division, we lost 128 men in Vietnam, and they are all on that wall,” said Marine and Vietnam Veteran Harold Stokes, explaining why he and dozens of Wise County Veterans volunteered to install the display.
“It’s to keep our fellow veterans in our minds and in our hearts,” he said.
And, to keep their sacrifices etched in stone so that every generation remembers, too.
The Cost of Freedom Tribute, after the 2 p.m. dedication ceremony on Wednesday, is open 24 hours, free of charge, through April 2.