Just returned from Rio Vista Park viewing the travelling wall. It will be there until Monday morning. It's hard to believe that after over 50+ years I still get tears in my eyes when I see it.
Something to understand about the Viet Nam wall. If you search by hometown or state you could miss those who enlisted somewhere other than their hometown. I recently learned that a high school friend who was KIA enlisted in the Marine Corps immediately college ( another town and state) and is not included in the search for our home town. I am revisiting the wall in DC in October.
If you have a chance to visit the wall in Peoria, go into the main building. They will locate names for you, and a volunteer will take you to the wall and actually trace the name on paper. I was able to find the names of 7 guys that I played ball with in high school and college. In fact, if football had not torn up my knee, my name might be there with theirs.
I'm sorry that I missed it, I have visited The Wall in DC several times and it was always powerful. I have an interesting book (20 years old, + or -) of artifacts left at the Wall. They are collected every day and stored, exhibited, in a huge warehouse or something around DC.
We went to the wall in Peoria yesterday and it was quite a sobering experience. Seeing the over 58,000 names and realizing how many families were impacted by this loss leaves an impact.