Vietnam Wall replica on display in St. George

ST. GEORGE — Retired Navy pilot Ron Lewis remembers coming home from his tour of duty in Vietnam to jeers, slurs and a couple of guys spitting on his uniform.

"They called me baby-killer and war monger. It was emotionally devastating," said Lewis, who in 1968 was a 22-year-old soldier returning to a nation that despised its soldiers. "I wasn't alone. A lot of us were treated like that."

Friday, Lewis and a steady stream of veterans and visitors showed up on the south lawn of the Dixie Center in St. George to grieve, meditate and touch the Vietnam Veterans Memorial "The Wall That Heals."

The half-scale replica is a traveling version of the original memorial in Washington, D.C. It can be transported to any city across the nation and will be on display in St. George through midnight today.

Members of the Vietnam Veterans of America, Southern Utah Chapter 961, brought the memorial to St. George with a lot of help and support from the community, said Dan Greathouse, chapter vice president.

"We went door-to-door, had fund-raisers and yard sales. The generosity of the people in southern Utah was fantastic," he said. The total cost to bring the wall to St. George was $14,000. Major sponsors include the Dixie Elks Club, Target, Harley Davidson Foundation and Disabled American Veterans.

The names of 58,000 Vietnam veterans who perished or were lost in the war are laser-etched into 23 panels of reflective black, power-coated, heavy aluminum. A database of the names and their arrangement on the wall is captured in a computer program, which helps visitors find the names of loved ones quickly and accurately.

Leon and Kim Utterback of Enoch came to find the name of Leon's childhood buddy, Larry Ray Brenner, who died in hostile gunfire at the age of 21 in the jungles of Vietnam.

"We grew up in Las Vegas together. He was a neat kid," said Leon Utterback, whose son, Kyle, is leaving in March for Afghanistan as a member of the 101st Airborne. "It scares me to death that my son is going. But the Lord will watch out for him."

Utterback said more people should visit the wall and take a few moments to reflect on the sacrifices made by those whose names are etched in the 123-foot-long memorial.

"It's a touchy subject for me. Patriotism is everything," he said. "We need these heroes and we need to remember them. These were the forgotten ones."

Carson Akers, 9, and his mother, Erika, came to see the wall because a school-sponsored field trip was rained out.