North Carolina V

A few vets from the Durham area wanted to build a memorial to those who served and sacrificed so much in Vietnam. Rather than wait for approval form others, they set about building it themselves.

After some time, they raised money, designed and built it at the Edison-James Recreation Center which is part of the Museum of Life and Science. It is along a beautiful wooded path and is called a living memorial. It lists the names of the 38 killed and 1 MIA from the area.

The memorial was dedicated in 1992 and then for reasons still unknown, somebody took a piece of construction machinery and destroyed it in 2001! The community was devastated but their anger soon turned to action and it was rebuilt. This time, rather than a few vets working for it, the whole community pitched in. Money, labor, and materials were donated substantially reducing the cost of rebuilding the site.

Some had said it was as if their loved ones had been killed again, but the efforts to rebuild and improve the site brought many together again.

Today, I will show you a few initial photos. In the next one or two posts I will concentrate upon some of the details.

Rebuilt in the original wooded spot, the memorial, I think, is better than ever.

There are five benches that invite ivisitors to sit and reflect. Each bench represents one branch of the service. The flags are National, State and POW/MIA. The POW/MIA in particular is very faded. I once had a guy, who was in charge of replacing flags for his city, tell me that flags generally last about 30 days. so, the cost must become an issue at some point.

The memorial itself is polished granite and contains, names, quotes and maps. I will show them in more detail in the next post.

So, join me on the 17th, at 9:00am for more from Durham, North Carolina.

To see additional memorials from North Carolina, or any other state, click the state name on the left side of this page.