Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
War and the Wall
Vietnam dead honored this weekend
Vietnam dead to be honored this weekend in Bentonville
Henry Don Mathews of Rogers was an Army sergeant who served with Company C, 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion, 11th Aviation Group, 1st Cavalry Division, during the Vietnam War. He died June 19, 1969, in Phuoc Long Province and is buried in the Fayetteville National Cemetery.
Robert Joseph Sabatini of Tontitown was an Army Specialist 4 who served with Battery A, 3rd Battalion, 18th Artillery Regiment, Americal Division, United States Army, in Vietnam. He died June 30, 1971, in Quang Ngai Province and is buried at St. Joseph Cemetery in Tontitown.
They are two among 58,318 names — Panel 22W, Line 91 and Panel 3W, Line 96 — on The Wall That Heals, a traveling replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. The Wall, which at three-quarter scale stands 7½ feet tall and is 375 feet long, will visit Northwest Arkansas this weekend. It’s a collaborative effort that took a year in the making, says Andrew Heath, executive director of Downtown Bentonville Inc.
“Growing up on the East Coast, I could go to Washington, D.C., whenever I wanted,” Heath says. “To be able to see a visual representation of all the people who gave their lives to make America
what it is today — not just in Vietnam but in all the wars — always hit me really hard. But many in the heartland don’t have that luxury and haven’t seen a lot of the memorials.”
Heath discovered the traveling Wall That Heals and suggested it in a meeting that also involved representatives of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. The museum had the space to set up the Wall on the Buckyball Field near the entrance, and a plan was formulated. The Wall will be open to visitors 24 hours a day starting today and ending at 1 p.m. Memorial Day.
“As a community anchor and cultural institution, The Wall That Heals presented an opportunity to tell a uniquely American experience for all of us at Crystal Bridges,” says Kash Logan, protection
service director at the museum. “Being a U.S. Army veteran, I am especially honored and humbled to be associated with the effort to bring such a wonderful expression of respect to the Northwest Arkansas community.”
There are other versions of the Wall, says Tim Tetz, director of outreach for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, the nonprofit organization that founded the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in 1982. But this is the only one associated with the Washington landmark, he says, and he believes it is the only one that gives visitors the experience they would have in the nation’s capital.
“Every single week I go out with the Wall, we get to have some sort of experience,” Tetz says. “I just packed up yesterday in Oakley, Kan., where I met a 7-year-old boy who took a tour of the Wall and was just enamored. He had these great red, white and blue, stars and stripes cowboy boots on, and on Saturday night, he brought those boots down there and left them at the apex of the Wall. It was an image of pure Americana, the epitome of what Oakley is about. And we have those experiences every single week.”