BIRDSBORO >> The mobile replica of the Vietnam War Memorial will come to Daniel Boone High School from July 5-8.
It will begin its public journey to Birdsboro at Sunnybrook Ballroom in Lower Pottsgrove and make its way down High Street in Pottstown on July 5.
Lynn Bialek, from the Birdsboro American Legion Post 626 auxiliary, and Vietnam veteran Richard Herter, who helped to organize the visit, said the wall will be on display at the high school around the clock until July 8.
Called “The Wall that Heals,” the mobile memorial is a three-quarter scale replica of the memorial in Washington, D.C., and contains the 58,318 service members who died in the war and whose names appear on the national memorial.
The mobile wall has visited approximately 600 cities, according to the Arlington, Va.-based Vietnam Veterans Memorial Replica and Mobile Education Center.
It is 375 feet in length and stands 7.5 feet high at its tallest point.
Its 140 panels are made from a synthetic granite called Avonite and LED lighting provides the ability to read the names there both day and night.
The 53-foot trailer that carries the wall is also a mobile education center which provides a history of the memorial.
The wall contains the names of 31 sets of brothers who died there, three sets of fathers and sons, eight women. The education center notes that Jan. 31, 1968 was the war’s deadliest day, when 246 Americans died; that the average age of service people whose names appear on the wall is 22 years and nine months and the youngest service member whose name appears on the wall was 15.
For more information on volunteering or becoming a sponsor, visit www.patriotconnections.org/BerksCounty or send an email to Auxiliarypost626@yahoo.com
Daniel Boone High School is located off Route 345 in Union Township.
