For the next three days, Baldwin Park will honor the memory of those who died in the Vietnam War.
Morgan Park’s “The Wall That Heals” is a smaller-scale replica of the Vietnam Veteran Memorial Baldwin Park is the memorial’s first stop on a nationwide tour sponsored by the Vietnam Veteran Memorial Fund.
KNX News’ Pete Demetriou spoke to Dennis Blessman, who will assist visitors in finding names among the more than 58,000 who were killed from 1959 to 1973.
“Usually when you help somebody find a name on the wall, there's always a story that goes along with it, and some of them are pretty heart wrenching, especially if somebody is finding the name of a relative, a friend for the first time,” Blessman said.
Sometimes he’ll tell the stories of special names on the wall.
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“A kid named Danny Bullock. He's the youngest on the wall. He snuck into the Marine Corps when he was 14 years old, and just before his 16th birthday, he was killed in Vietnam,” Blessman said.
Even after all his years volunteering, Blessman said he still looks at the names and thinks about what those people could’ve been later in life.
The wall is open for visitation 24 hours a day until it leaves Baldwin Park on Sunday.
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