Page 2 - AV Wall 2019 - 10 Year Anniversary Program

2 November 2019 avwall.org
AV WAll — 10 YeArs of BriNgiNg PeoPle TogeTher
AV’s own Vietnam Memorial marks a decade of service
by DENNIS ANDERSON
special To Aerotech News & Review
On a bruisingly cold, windy night in November, when tem- peratures drop quickly in the desert and breezes can be 15-20 mph, about 200 of the Antelope Valley’s hardiest citizens turned out for the 2009 dedication of the Antelope Valley Mobile Vietnam Memorial Wall. It was a memorable couple of hours.
Ten years later, following its first decade of service, what is known, to most, simply as the “AV Wall,” has kept on moving, sharing a mobile history lesson of support and respect for the Americans who served and sacrificed in the Vietnam War.
Anyone out on the ground, with wind chill pushing tem- peratures into the 30s, can remember the bright lights shining on the long, black, pyramid-shaped memorial — a half-scale replica of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C.
The local memorial was un- veiled on Nov. 9, 2009, amid blowing sand, at Joe Davies Air Park in Palmdale. It would become a portable monument to all who gave their lives during the Vietnam War.
The national Vietnam Me- morial in Washington, D.C., began its lessons of history and healing amid controversies as impassioned as all arguments about the Vietnam War itself. In the decades since it was inau- gurated, the national Vietnam Veterans Memorial became just about the most visited shrine in the nation’s capital. The mission of the AV Wall has been to bring the experience of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to multi- tudes who will never journey to the nation’s capital.
five such half-scale memorial “traveling walls” in the entire United States, and the only one based on the West Coast. Built with funds contributed by veterans, service organizations, area cities, corporate donations and even schoolchildren, the AV Wall tribute to the Vietnam Memorial is its own story about love of country and devotion to service.
their respects at the AV Wall. The AV Wall is about half the size of the national Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Like the na- tional monument, the AV Wall is polished to a high finish, and etched with the names of the servicemen being honored in 72 panels of horizontal rows with regular typeface and spacing, measuring 252 feet. Among the more than 58,000 names are 76 sons of the Antelope Valley who lost their lives fighting the war
in Vietnam.
How the AV Wall came into
being emerged from a revival run of Shirley Lauro’s “A Piece Of My Heart” at the Palmdale Playhouse in 2005. Notably, the play was about women who served in Vietnam. Eight women are listed on the Viet- nam Memorial, with 6,250 of the 7,484 women who served in Vietnam assigned as military nurses. Despite the vast majority of the American service deaths in Vietnam being men, the play was a wrenching experience for Vietnam veterans from the Antelope Valley who saw the play, some of them volunteers on an educational panel. Both Palmdale and Lancaster had previously hosted visits of a traveling Vietnam Memorial wall exhibit.
“Our question was, ‘Why don’t we build our own Wall?’” Marine veteran Palermo said.
“The idea was to make our own version of the Wall as a resource to the community, and to share it,” Bertell said.
“We have Mike Bertell to blame for building the AV Wall,” Vietnam War Navy veteran Glen Nester said.
At the time “A Piece Of My Heart” was revived, war raged
_ See memorial, on Page 5
Courtesy photographs
The late Bob Evans, an Army captain who served with 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam, visits the AV Wall. Evans was a founding AV Wall Committee member and past chairman.
One of the AV Wall’s guiding spirits is fond of a phrase that was minted by students in his- tory teacher Jamie Goodreau’s classes at Lancaster High School. Those same students hosted the AV Wall and accorded Viet- nam veterans the respect they earned, and yearned for over so many years.
“Most walls keep people out,” AV Wall Committee Chairman Michael Bertell is fond of say- ing. “This wall brings people together.”
The dedication of the AV Wall opened with Vietnam War veterans parading in, carrying service and national flags, the vets wearing their “boonie hats,” jungle boots and fatigues. Like the national monument, the AV Wall rose up as a tribute to the 58,276 casualties of America’s long and agonizing combat.
The national Vietnam Me- morial, dedicated in November 1981, was designed by Yale architecture student Maya Lin, who was 21 at the time. Her
design of a black, granite wall plunging into the earth ignited controversy at the time. Over the years, the significance of the inclusion of all the names on the Wall gave way to na- tional reflection, mourning and reverence.
“When you see a name that you know, you see the incident, where and when it happened, and it all comes back to you,” said Bertell, a Vietnam combat veteran of the 101st Airborne Division.
Bertell, with Marine Corps Vietnam veteran George Paler- mo, and a small band of brothers and sisters, was instrumental in getting the AV Mobile Vietnam Memorial Wall built 10 years ago.
The AV Wall is one of only
“Our AV Wall came out of a community-wide, grassroots effort,” said Linda Willis, a City of Palmdale employee with the Palmdale Playhouse, and one of the original committee members. Additionally, the AV Wall organization is an official partner of the national Vietnam War 50th Commemoration.
In the decade since the dedi- cation of the AV Wall, the locally designed-and-built me- morial has traveled to a score of locations across California, ranging from the Eastern Sierra community of Bishop, down to the San Diego area at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. Tens of thousands of veterans of all eras of service, plus fam- ily members, members of youth and service groups have paid
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