Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Welcome
Welcome to Rolling With The Moving Wall 2010. The Moving Wall is a half-scale replica of Washington DC's Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Since 1984, The Moving Wall has toured the country, having installed itself for public viewing at over a thousand towns and cities. A conservative estimate would put the number of past visitors in the millions. This summer and fall, that number of visitors will grow as The Moving Wall will be hosted by almost forty additional towns and cities.
This site is dedicated to community members in those towns and cities who'd like to post comments from having visited The Moving Wall during its stay, and to those others who might like to read those comments.
If you are a community member of one of the towns listed below and you would like to post comments, reflections, observations, poems, etc. to the blog, you can do so easily by moving your computer cursor over the "comments" link that appears to the right below your town's name,
clicking on it, and writing in the text box that pops open. (Be sure to click on "Post Comment" before navigating away from the page)
If you would like to post images to this site, please send them to rollingwiththemovingwall@gmail.com, and be sure to include the location from which the pictures comes.
Also, if you would like to read my personal blog relating to The Moving Wall, please visit
http://rollingwiththemovingwall.blogspot.com/
Please consider participating in my very brief and anonymous survey on visitors to The Moving Wall. The survey is only ten questions long, and can be accessed at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CK3N5W3
I am also quite honored and pleased that Sharon Denitto has requested that here excellent site, Touch The Wall (http://www.touchthewall.org), be linked here. Please visit Touch The Wall, as her hard work offers a unique perspective on The Wall and presents information not readily found elsewhere.
This site is dedicated to community members in those towns and cities who'd like to post comments from having visited The Moving Wall during its stay, and to those others who might like to read those comments.
If you are a community member of one of the towns listed below and you would like to post comments, reflections, observations, poems, etc. to the blog, you can do so easily by moving your computer cursor over the "comments" link that appears to the right below your town's name,
clicking on it, and writing in the text box that pops open. (Be sure to click on "Post Comment" before navigating away from the page)If you would like to post images to this site, please send them to rollingwiththemovingwall@gmail.com, and be sure to include the location from which the pictures comes.
Also, if you would like to read my personal blog relating to The Moving Wall, please visit
http://rollingwiththemovingwall.blogspot.com/
Please consider participating in my very brief and anonymous survey on visitors to The Moving Wall. The survey is only ten questions long, and can be accessed at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CK3N5W3
I am also quite honored and pleased that Sharon Denitto has requested that here excellent site, Touch The Wall (http://www.touchthewall.org), be linked here. Please visit Touch The Wall, as her hard work offers a unique perspective on The Wall and presents information not readily found elsewhere.
About Me
- Jerry Blitefield
- Since I first discovered it in 1998, I have been studying The Moving Wall, the original half-scale replica of The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. I am interested in the way The Moving Wall travels around the country creating temporary sites of memory and transforming daily landscapes into ritual domains. Recently, I applied for a National Endowment for the Humanities stipend to trail and write about The Moving Wall this summer, and to keep a blog of my observations and experiences. Unfortunately, the NEH turned me down. But I have decided to set up this blog so that collaboratively we can tell story of The Moving Wall, anyway. While I won’t be able to travel with The Moving Wall as I had originally sought to, I hope that you will contribute to this site in your comments.
I am very disappointed Lisa Grey has decided that the American Indian Exposition does not meet her standards. We meet the standards that are in the contract and Sponsor's Handbook. However, this rude and unprofessional person has decided to insult not only our Indian community but the entire community of Caddo County.
ReplyDeleteAs a Marine veteran of Vietnam I am not only disappointed but very upset. I am also 100% disabled and like a lot of people especially the older ones will never make it to D.C. to see the real thing and now we can't see the moving wall. All I can say is shame on you people. You've left ill will behind you from the people of Caddo Co.
ReplyDeleteMy husband is a Vietnam Veteran and was one of the many honorees at Anadarko, OK. However, we were very disappointed to hear that the Moving Wall committee did not fulfill their agreement with the Exposition committee and pulled out the night before the event. Many people from the community had given their time and spent hours in the heat to assure that the area was ready for the Moving Wall. The committee paid money and reserved rooms for the staff of the Moving Wall organization. People traveled miles to visit the wall to pay tribute to lost loved ones because they will never have the opportunity to travel to DC to see the real thing. I feel the Moving Wall organization was insensitive to the cultures and traditions of the American Indians who proudly served in Vietnam and were represented at the Exposition. This would have been a memorable tribute and healing process to many of the Vietnam Veteran's and their families to witness this Vietnam Veteran's Moving Wall. I hope that the Exposition committee will be compensated for all the planning and time spent bringing this Moving Wall to the people.
ReplyDeleteThe moving wall has become a "joke". Not only were the people of Anadarko let down. But all who have served and fallen to be remembered have been let down. I will never support the moving wall again.
ReplyDeleteWe got to see the moving wall in Johnson City Tn, last year. Am I wrong, or are there several companies that "own" moving walls? I have heard that they are NOT all about the Vietnam vets and make HUGE amounts of cash with this wall.
ReplyDeleteBlog owner: can you do the research and let us know?
woliwon
Dear Anonymous, The truth is that there is only one Moving Wall, the one that had been scheduled to exhibit in Anadarko. Since John Devitt conceived and created The Moving Wall in 1984, other knock-offs have sprung up with perhaps questionable motives. For instance, something called "The Dignity Wall" is owned by Dignity Memorial, a nationwide network of funeral parlors. Dignity offers discount funeral services to vets. There is also something called "The Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall" out of Florida, and "The American Veterans' Traveling Tribute" out of Texas. I don't know what gap these "walls" perceived they'd fill but they have been confusing the public and diluting the memorial impact of The Moving Wall, especially when they sell their own merchandise (as the last two do, and as Dignity does in a way, too.) Whether or not these other memorials make money from their exhibits I can't say. What I can say is that The Moving Wall does not. I have been to White Pine, MI, and have visited John and Joy in their very modest ranch-style home. If they are "making money" off of The Wall, their lifestyle sure doesn't show it. One more thing you should know. You said that you have heard that some of the memorials are not all about the vets. Again, I don't know what motivates those others, but I can tell you that The Moving Wall IS all about the vets. From day one John has focused on providing Vietnam vets as close to the DC experience as they could have, and that is why he has established such strict guidelines for The Wall's display. He absolutely refuses to compromise the honor and respect of those whose names The Wall bears, as well as those vets who come to visit them. i don't know the details of what happened in Anadarko, but I can assure you that John, Joy, Lisa, and Aaron are as disappointed with the turn of events as is the Anadarko community.
ReplyDelete