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Monday, June 19, 2017

Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall in Plainfield


For the past few days, a 3/5 size replica of the Vietnam Memorial Wall has been in Plainfield Township Community Park. Today is the last day you can see it before this traveling memorial moves to its next destination in West Orange, NJ.

When I visited yesterday, I was struck by the number of people who were visiting, even though it was incorrectly listed as being at the Municipal Park. They were very quiet.

Along the wall were a number of makeshift memorials in memory of soldiers from this area who gave their life.Between 1965 and 1974,1.3 million people lost their lives in that war.

Here are some interesting statistics:

Youngest Vietnam KIA - 15 years old.
Oldest person on the Wall - 63 years old.
At least 5 men killed in Vietnam were 16 years old.
25,000 of those killed were 20 years old or younger.
More than 17,000 of those killed were married.
Veterans killed on their first day in Vietnam 997 (unconfirmed)
Veterans killed on their last day in Vietnam 1,448 (unconfirmed)
Number of Chaplains on the Wall - 16 (2 Medal Of Honor)
Number of Women on the Wall - 8 (7 Army, 1 USAF - 7,484 served)
There are 226 Native Americans on the Memorial.
There are 22 countries represented on the Memorial.
The most casualties for a single day was on January 31, 1968 ~ 245 casualties.
The most casualties for a single month was May 1968, 2,415 casualties were incurred.
Three sets of fathers and sons were killed.
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3 comments:

  1. sezaryJune 19, 2017 at 12:06 PM

    Glad to see you covered this. I made all 3 of my children currently in this country visit the "wall" on Sunday. We must not forget, freedom is not free. Each name represents a human being, a son/daughter, brother/sister, husband/wife, family member, etc... Ideas, principles and policies not individuals. Perspective people. Thanks Bernie.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJune 19, 2017 at 3:43 PM

    didn't get to see this, but figured this is a good place to mention the follow. A makeshift memorial for Vietnam Veterans can be found in the main Easton Post Office. It's nothing fancy, just a poster, but the signatures on in from vets passing by really makes it stand out to me.

    Hank_Hill

    ReplyDelete
  3. Bernie O'HareJune 19, 2017 at 4:00 PM

    Hank, thanks. I will check that out

    ReplyDelete

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