Vietnam Wall Coming to North Fulton

publication date: May 12, 2008

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author/source: Jonathan Copsey / STAFF

By Jonathan Copsey / STAFF

The Groundbreaking ceremony for the traveling Vietnam Wall took place last week with Roswell and Alpharetta mayors and Congressman Tom Price taking part. The Wall will be in Roswell during July 4 weekend.

“It’s peculiar turning dirt in a cemetery.”

The words of Roswell mayor Jere Wood could not have been truer, as he and other dignitaries held a ground breaking last week at Roswell’s Green Lawn Cemetery for the installation of the Dignity Memorial Vietnam Wall. Also attending the small ceremony were Congressman Tom Price, Alpharetta Mayor Arthur Letchas and Marty Farrell of American Legion Post 201. The groundbreaking took place in front of a sobering line of small flags that outlined the location of the wall.

“The Vietnam memorial is the most visited site in the United States,” said Tony Papel, manager of Green Lawn Cemetery, in the opening remarks of the ceremony. “But unfortunately most people don’t have the opportunity to actually visit the wall and touch the wall. And that’s the purpose of the Dignity Memorial Wall.”

Built in 1990, the Dignity Memorial Vietnam Wall is a traveling replica of the actual wall that sits in Washington, D.C. A three-quarters sized replica, the traveling Wall is 250 feet long, eight feet high and has every one of the 58,000 names that adorn the real wall. The wall will come to Roswell for the weekend of July 4.

“There are few structures in all the world more powerful than the 250 feet of black granite on the northwest corner of the National Mall in Washington, D.C.,” Price said. “For more than 25 years it has stood as an awe-inspiring reminder of both the sacrifice of a great generation and of the American commitment to freedom and democracy.

“Every time I visit the memorial,” he continued, “I am awed by its magnificence and struck by the reverence with which it is held. To know contemporaneously how consequential one’s actions in life are is rarely possible. The men and women on this wall, they died for freedom, they died for liberty, they died for us.”

Mayor Letchas proceeded to read a proclamation declaring the weekend of July 4 as “Dignity Memorial Wall Weekend,” in honor of both the wall and of those whose names are inscribed upon it. 

“To visit the wall is an appropriate tribute to honor the lives of those who served,” he said.

“Roswell and North Fulton County have so much to thank our veterans for,” Wood said. “We cannot thank these folks we are honoring today because they have gone before us, but we can thank their families, we can thank the other veterans, and we can remember them for what they have done.”

Situated in the Green Lawn Cemetery among the monuments and near the tranquil waters of a nearby lake, the memorial will have a fitting location to honor the dead.

Green Lawn Cemetery is located on Alpharetta Hwy/ Hwy 9 in Roswell.