Bringing The Wall Home

BY KIM BROWN

The 101st Airborne Division lost more than four thousand men during the Vietnam War. Paul A. Feddern is one of the survivors who came to pay respects to the friends he lost when The Moving Wall came to Juniper Valley Park in Queens, New York, June 30-July 2.

“It’s very touching to see The Wall with the names of so many of my fallen brothers,” said Feddern, who served with the 101st from 1967-68. “It’s very important to know they are remembered.”

Feddern is a member of Queens Chapter 32, which helped bring The Moving Wall to Juniper Valley Park. Throughout that weekend an estimated five thousand people came to The Wall to honor those who lost their lives. Among the visitors were those who are unable to go to Washington, D.C., to see the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and others who cannot bring themselves to make the trip.

“It’s very emotional for Vietnam veterans to have the memorial in their hometown,” said Chapter 32 President Paul Narson. “They can come to grieve in the middle of the night when no one can see them.”

It was not only veterans who were affected by the half-size replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. “There was a mother who never saw her son’s name on The Wall,” Narson said. “It was too emotional for her to make the trip. Here she had a neighbor go with her, and all she had to do was cross the street.”

Long before it arrived, The Moving Wall brought the community together. In addition to Chapter 32, the Queens Veterans Day Parade Committee put in many hours to bring the memorial to Juniper Valley Park. Those organizations, along with Maspeth Federal Savings and The United Veterans and Fraternal Organizations of Maspeth, donated the nearly $10,000 needed for travel, assembling The Wall, insurance, and security costs.

Tony Nunziato, the owner of a floral business and a community activist whose brother died in the war, donated the flowers. Nunziato said it was important to have The Moving Wall in Queens because that borough lost more than five hundred men in Vietnam.

“When their country called them, they did the right thing. They were there,” he said. “Having The Wall in the community was like bringing them home.”

His son, Anthony Nunziato, Jr., paid respects to Aniello Nunziato, the uncle he never knew. “It was very impressive; it was just awe inspiring,” Nunziato Jr. said about The Moving Wall. “For it to be really close to home just made that much more of an impact.”

Seeing the 58,272 names also made the deaths tangible for those with little connection to the war.

“It’s good for the public to see, to understand what the sacrifice is all about and understand what the price of war is,” said VVA President John Rowan, who lives just blocks from Juniper Valley Park.

Caroline Roswell-Ron, a teacher who also lives nearby, found out about The Moving Wall by chance, but ended up visiting it every day and bringing her children to grieve with the veterans, their families, and friends.

“It really brought something larger than life to an otherwise ordinary place. It was definitely a spiritual experience for me, and I cried a lot thinking about all those people,” she said, “especially the young men, practically boys, and the broken hearts of all those who loved and lost them.”

After the weekend of mourning, remembering, and healing it was time for The Moving Wall to move on.

“I was having a real hard time saying good bye,” said Pat Toro, the former president of Chapter 32 who worked for years to bring The Moving Wall to Juniper Valley Park. “Then I realized I wasn’t saying good bye; I was letting it move on so others could see it, too. We don’t forget. It stays with us for a long, long time.”

For more information about The Moving Wall, go to www.themovingwall.org