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By STEVE MOCARSKY; Times Leader Staff Writer
Sunday, September 06, 1998 Page: 1A
HAZLE TWP.- Some men wiped away tears as they found names they knew etched
in the cold, black granite.
Others struggled to keep their voices from cracking as they scanned the
250-foot-long wall commemorating friends killed or missing in the Vietnam War.
“It’s a moving experience. It’s hard to describe,” said Dave Kish of
Freeland, who brought his young son and daughter with him to see the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial Wall replica Saturday at the Laurel Mall.
A U.S. Navy veteran of the war, Kish said he brought his children, hoping
they’d learn something about the war and what it meant.
The granite panels bear 58,209 names. About 1,300 of those are considered
missing in action. Volunteers worked from about 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday
to erect the 70 6-foot-high panels on a grassy lot between Boscov’s garden
center and Hoyt’s Cinemas.
The wall is one of four scale replicas of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Wall in Washington, D.C., that travel around the country. The replica will
remain at the mall until Friday.
A few hundred people gathered at 11 a.m. for a ceremony to mark the start
of the seven-day tribute to the dead and missing Vietnam servicemen and
servicewomen. The wall will be open to the public 24 hours a day until closing
ceremonies at 7 p.m. Friday.
Other ceremonies this week at the wall include:
A performance by the Andrews Air Force Base Canine Patrol Team, 1 p.m.
today.
A Prisoner of War Display, 2 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, with a recognition ceremony
at 7:30 p.m.
A candlelight vigil, 7 p.m. Wednesday.
John Harris, adjutant for the Walter L. Hagelgans Veterans of Foreign Wars
Post 8253, said he thought more people would have attended had it not been
Labor Day weekend. The local VFW post co-sponsored the wall visit with
Boscov’s and the Laurel Mall.
Harris said the appearance of the wall in the Hazleton area is significant
because it gives local people, who might not be able to make a trip to the
original wall in Washington, the opportunity to learn about the Vietnam War
and to honor the fallen.
Harris said he saw firsthand what visiting the wall can mean to someone who
lost a loved one in the war.
He described a woman who for many years wore a bracelet bearing the name of
a relative missing in action. It was very moving for her to find the name on
the wall, Harris said.
Len Luba, a Vietnam War veteran and commander of VFW Post 5267, Hanover
Township, wore a similar bracelet on his wrist. It bears the name of a good
friend who was a colonel in the U.S. Air Force.
Luba, who served in Da Nang with the mobile Riverines, a combination
Army/Navy group that operated boats on rivers, said he wears the bracelet to
remember his friend, Wayne, who was shot down over Laos on Aug. 9, 1968.
The bracelet tradition began when Vietnamese gave brass bands bearing their
tribal symbols to their American friends who were being shipped back home as a
means of remembering them, he said.
Luba, who helped provide overnight security for the wall with the Vietnam
Vets With Motorcycles Club, said he wants area residents, including children,
to visit the wall.
“Hopefully (children) will remember seeing it and pass it on to their
children. It’s important to keep the memories alive,” Luba said.