Committee organizes to bring Moving Wall here

Randy Valley was selected as chairman and Coleen Swenson as deputy chair of the committee that will organize the June 14-22 appearance of the Moving Wall in Mountain Home.

The Moving Wall is a half-scale replica of the national Vietnam Veteran's Memorial. It travels throughout the country allowing citizens to honor the veterans who died in Vietnam.

Valley is chairman of the Air Force Appreciation Day Committee, which provided the funds to make the appearance of the wall in Mountain Home possible. Swenson was the driving force behind the three-year effort to acquire the wall.

Those appointments were made during the initial meeting of more than 30 people who will form the committee to set up the wall and the week-long ceremonies that will go with it while it is in Mountain Home. Many of the members of the committee are veterans of the Vietnam War.

Fire Chief Phil Gridley, Jr., of Mountain Home, and Dale Smith of Glenns Ferry, will be responsible for organizing the ceremonies that will be held each day. Tentatively, the flag at Carl Miller Park, where the wall will be located, will be lowered to half staff each morning and raised to full staff each evening. Special ceremonies will be held each morning that the wall is in town.

Jerry Rost of Summers Funeral Home will spearhead the fundraising efforts that will help pay for programs and other costs associated with displaying the wall during the week.

The Idaho Motorcycle Club will escort the truck bearing the wall from the Idaho border to Mountain Home.

Last week's meeting of the wall committee handed out assignments for a large number of committees, ranging from setting up the wall (Jim McClure), to providing a medical tent (Butch Hansen) for people who may need it.

Representatives from the base and the Idaho National Guard, as well as almost every veteran's organization in Elmore County volunteered for the more than two-dozen subcommittees required to properly display the wall.

The next meeting of the committee will be March 16 at 6:30 p.m. at the fire station.

The wall contains the names of the 58,228 military personnel who died in Vietnam and is dedicated to the 2.7 million men and women who served in the U.S. military in Vietnam.

The Moving Wall was paid for, like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., from contributions made by the public. It's appearances are coordinated by Vietnam Combat Veterans, Ltd. It is not a display owned or operated by the federal government.

As names have been added over the years to the wall in Washington, D.C., Vietnam Combat Veterans, Ltd., have updated the moving wall to exactly match the names on the national memorial.