Volunteers carry a panel from The Wall That Heals as it is assembled at the Devens Reserve Forces Training Area in Massachusetts on July 24, 2024. (John Quinn/Devens Reserve Forces)
A three-quarter scale replica of the iconic Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., is coming to Oahu for the first time for a six-day exhibition beginning next week.
The Wall That Heals carries the etched names of more than 58,000 service members killed during the Vietnam War, as does the original memorial that was dedicated on Nov. 13, 1982.
Over the decades since then, the memorial has become a source of remembrance and healing for veterans of the war as well as family and friends who lost loved ones in the decade-long conflict.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, which built the original memorial, unveiled The Wall That Heals in 1996, and it has been displayed in more than 800 communities across the nation since then.
The replica is 375 feet long and comprises 140 name panels made of synthetic granite.
“The traveling exhibit provides thousands of veterans who have been unable to cope with the prospect of facing The Wall to find the strength and courage to do so within their own communities, thus allowing the healing process to begin,” the organization’s website states.
The Wall That Heals will be displayed on the campus of the University of Hawaii-West Oahu in Kapolei, about 20 miles from the university’s main campus in central Honolulu.
An opening ceremony is scheduled for 10 a.m. on Jan. 14, but the public can begin viewing it as it is assembled a day earlier, according to Sue Bauer, who along with husband Eddie Freeman, a Vietnam War veteran, spearheaded the effort to bring it to Oahu.
The couple worked as volunteers during the wall’s exhibit on the islands of Maui and Hawaii in January 2024 and have since become determined to bring it to the state’s most populous island, on which they live.
“We just kind of said, you know, this has to come to Oahu,” Bauer said in a phone interview Tuesday. “And we just made it a mission. We’ve been working on it for a while, but we didn’t really get final approval until September.”
With the help of a local Elks Club, they established the nonprofit The Wall That Heals Oahu 2026 and navigated through a lengthy and competitive application process.
The University of Hawaii quickly agreed to host the exhibit and was instrumental in getting approval from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Bauer said.
The transportation firm Pasha Hawaii agreed to ship the exhibit to Oahu for free, she said.
An army of volunteers will oversee the wall 24 hours a day during its exhibition, she said.
The 53-foot-long trailer in which the panels are carried is converted into an education center during the display period, Bauer said.
Digital displays provide a timeline of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. U.S. troops were directly involved in combat from 1965 to 1973, and American military advisers remained in South Vietnam until it fell to North Vietnamese forces in 1975.
The trailer also showcases service members from Hawaii who died in the war and certain artifacts left at the original wall in D.C.
