PRESS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

American Veterans Traveling Tribute Coming in June 2013

The American Veterans Traveling Tribute (ATTV) Vietnam Wall will find a home on the campus of Lindbergh High School, 4900 S. Lindbergh Blvd. from June 13  to 16, largely due to the efforts of St. Louis area veterans organizations, Sunset Hills Historical Society and many business and civic organizations.

“The Traveling Wall” has made stops across the nation and serves to educate, to inspire, and to provide a place for healing for all those who visit. The Wall is an 80 percent scale model of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., which honors U.S. Service members and the U.S. armed forces who died in the service of their country. More than 58,000 names are etched into the memorial wall.

Vietnam veterans have played a key role in the project for a transportable version of the wall, so that those who cannot travel to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., can see what the memorial is all about and touch the names of friends or loved ones from the Vietnam War era.

The June event for St. Louis is known as the Show-Me Hero Salute. A broad-based committee hosting the event began meeting in June with the intention to present a dignified local memorial that will be respectful for those who served and returned as well as those who served and didn’t come home.

“Our Show-Me Hero Salute committee has grown in size with every week since its start in January. We are genuinely gratified by the number of  civic and veterans groups who have eagerly joined in this effort to show our Vietnam veterans and all veterans that they are never forgotten and they are always appreciated,” said Sunset of Hills resident Morris L. “Butch” Thomas, who is chairing the event.

“Every day that the Wall is here will be memorable, beginning Wednesday, June 12, when the wall arrives and an escort motorcade travels through Crestwood on Watson Road and then down South Lindbergh to the high school where there will be a cannon volley welcome,” noted Thomas. “On Thursday, there will be bands and a patriotic program and many notables including local mayors, county officials, legislators and leaders in state government.”

The Show-Me Hero Salute organizers will provide more details on the multi-day American Veterans Traveling Tribute events as they become available. The daily programs will be short, as the major function of the wall will be to create a solemn, reverent, and meditative site.

Chaplains will be available for visitors as needed. St. Anthony’s Medical Center will  provide a First-Aid facility on site. Computers will be available and assistance given to help visitors to the scale-model memorial locate the names of their loved ones on the various panels of the Wall.

The Show-Me Hero Salute will have listed hours of operation daily, but the wall will be available for visitation twenty-four hours a day until the closing ceremony ends at 3 p.m. Sunday, June 16.

Two generations ago, America found itself embroiled in the “hottest war” of the Cold War era in Southeast Asia. The Vietnam Wall documents the American loss of life in a war that is generally recorded as lasting from 1959 through the fall of Saigon in 1975. This year marks a series of 50^th anniversaries in the intensification of the war and an increase in America’s presence in Viet Nam and Southeast Asia.

As a service to the news media and to those who know the importance of remembering this vital piece of American history, the Show-Me Hero Salute public information office will be sending out a series of releases noting such Vietnam War era benchmarks as the dispatch of the first Special Forces, the battles at Ia Drang Valley and Khe Sanh, the Tet Offensive, the commencement of the draft lottery, the freeing of POWs and the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam.

“This is an on-going event that is happening now and will not simply end when the Wall comes down on Sunday, June 16,” said Thomas. “We welcome those who have a story to tell today, tomorrow and at the Traveling Tribute Vietnam Wall in June. This is a community event that is free and open to the public and we are going to do our best to live up to our theme: honor, respect, remember.”

For more information on the Show-Me Hero Salute activities and the traveling wall, please contact: Morris L. “Butch” Thomas, chairman, 314-849-2234 or by email: Morris.Thomas@att.net; or publicity contact GeGe Mix at 636-394-6677 or by email: gegemix@charter.net.