Traveling Vietnam Memorial on display in Bay St. Louis

A traveling Vietnam Memorial has made its way to Bay St. Louis. It’s a replica of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C. designed to travel across the country.

Wednesday morning, students at Bay High were helping set up ‘the wall that heals’ which is a traveling three quarter scale replica of the Vietnam Memorial. The wall is stored inside a 53-foot trailer and visits multiple communities across the country bringing with it the story of the Vietnam War.

For Gold Star daughters, Diana Moore and Rhonda Cody, having this memorial on the Coast gives them the opportunity to see their fathers at home instead of making the trip to DC. Cody said, “My daddy was one of the first 100 casualties. He had a mission to fly through the jungles. He wasn’t supposed to be flying that day, but the other pilot wasn’t feeling well and he said ‘oh, I’ll do it.’”

Moore said, “I don’t want to be a Gold Star daughter. It’s not a crowd that you want to join, but by fate I became one. I was 11 when my dad left for Vietnam.”

The traveling exhibit allows Moore and Cody to see the names of their fathers resting alongside the more than 58,000 others who lost their lives fighting for our country. “It’s very important to me that it gets emotional. I mean, I’ve seen my dad’s name many, many times in DC and when these traveling walls come around, I get to say that’s my dad.”

The wall will be on display at the Bay St. Louis sports complex starting tomorrow afternoon with an opening ceremony at 3 p.m.

It’s free and open 24 hours.

The traveling exhibit will be in Bay St. Louis through Sunday.