Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
John Kidd is proof that you don’t have to be a veteran to appreciate what many simply call The Wall.
Kidd arrived midafternoon Thursday to volunteer after the replica wall – formally known as the American Veterans Traveling Tribute Vietnam Memorial Wall – was assembled along the northern edge of the Central Park lawn in Warsaw as part of a four-day event to honor Vietnam veterans.
Kidd never served in the military but has a soft spot for those who did. Last year, he helped lead efforts to construct a new home for a disabled Warsaw native who served multiple tours in Iraq.
On Thursday, he made himself available to help anyone looking for names along the expansive 360-foot structure that honors 58,220 Americans who died in Vietnam.
“We’re blessed in this little town,” Kidd said as he paused and began to choke up as he perused a view of the entire wall. “... I’ve been holding it in.”
Minutes earlier, Kidd had helped Yancy Horn find the names of three men he met in boot camp before being shipped off to Vietnam.
Together, they found the names of three men.
“It kind of hurt,” Horn said after coming across the names.
Horn served six years as a Marine, including two years of active duty.
“After we got there, everyone went this way and one went that way and never seen them again, but you remember,” Horn said following opening ceremonies at Central Park.
Also among those who came to see the wall Thursday was Eugenia Fulkerson, who worked in Vietnam as one of the Donut Dollies – women who volunteered through the Red Cross as part of a program called Supplemental Recreation Activities Overseas.
She said she was in Vietnam in 1968 and 1969 and was stationed at two military bases.
Some of the Dollies’ duties involved running recreation centers and providing meals to American soldiers.
She was working as a reporter in Lafayette when she learned about the opportunity while writing a story.
Having the wall in Warsaw for a few days was a great opportunity, she said.
She’s proud of her role.
“It was the best thing I did with my life,” Fulkerson said. “It was the major event of our generation, and to be there and be a civilian woman was such a privilege to see those guys and see what they did and do something to be helpful.”
Kidd, Horn and Fulkerson were among more than 100 people who gathered Thursday to view the wall and listen to opening ceremonies, which included opening comments from Mayor Joe Thallemer; an invocation by Richard Maron, Kosciusko County veterans affairs officer; an introduction by Suzie Light, chairwoman of Warsaw Public Arts Commission, which funded the project; and a speech by Ken Locke of the Salvation Army and the leader of the Greater Warsaw Ministerial Association.
Locke, an Army veteran, talked about how one of his boyhood friends from Iowa was among the last two Americans killed in the Vietnam war.
He recalled how his friends and other Vietnam veterans returned home and were treated with contempt, how more than a thousand remain missing in action and how countless others continued to suffer after arriving home.
“Our government is accountable for its decisions to send our young men and women into battle, but our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines should never be held in contempt for their service when our nation calls,” Locke said.
“Daily, we should thank God, the author of liberty, for the blessings we take for granted that others around the world only dream of. But it comes with a price. The blackness of this monument reminds us of this cost,” he said.
Activities continue today and will be highlighted with a ceremony at 6:30 p.m., when local Vietnam veterans are honored at the courthouse square as part of First Friday activities.
Country music entertainer Jason Michael Carroll will perform a show at 8 p.m. at the courthouse.
A free dinner for veterans will be from 5 to 9 p.m. at the nearby city hall plaza.
Breakfast and lunch will be served to veterans on Saturday in the west parking lot of Central Park. Those events require tickets, which will be dispersed Friday night.
