The Wall That Heals Brings Vietnam Veterans’ Memories Alive in Oneonta

By NYCOLE SURJU
SUNY Institute for Local News
ONEONTA

For Vietnam veteran George Sluti, the names stretching across The Wall That Heals in Neahwa Park represented both those who were lost and the responsibility carried by those who returned home.

“I’m one of the lucky ones,” Sluti said. “People say, ‘Thank you for your service,’ whenever they see the cap. And I don’t say, ‘You’re welcome.’ I tell them it was an honor, because I brought 243 men home alive. I was directly responsible for those…I’m 244, and I wouldn’t be here unless they did all their duties.”

Sluti, a member of American Legion Post 259 who said he served in Vietnam for three months and 27 days, was among the veterans, volunteers and residents who gathered as the traveling memorial opened in Oneonta. Its presence from September 24 through September 27 gave people across the region a place to remember the dead, recognize those who served, and consider the war’s lasting effects on veterans, families, and the wider community.

The Wall That Heals is a three-quarter-scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. At 375 feet long and 7.5 feet high at its apex, its 140 panels bear the names of 58,281 service members who died in Vietnam. The free exhibit, a program of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, was open around the clock in Neahwa Park from Thursday through Sunday.

For local organizers, bringing the memorial to Oneonta was especially important because the national history recorded on its panels is also local history. Dave Rowley, co-chair of the Oneonta Wall That Heals Committee, said the exhibit offered veterans “reinforcement on how much the country and the community appreciate their service. That’s what it’s all about.”

Rowley explained why the committee wanted the memorial in the city: “Because there are nine guys on the wall that attended Oneonta High School, and there are 20 some that are from this county.”

The visit was organized by the Oneonta Wall That Heals Committee, a partnership that included American Legion Post 259, American Legion Riders Post 259, Otsego Media, Directive Technology Inc., Brite Agency, The Village Printer, the City of Oneonta and other Central New York community partners. Rowley and Chris Chase co-chaired the effort. Chase also serves as director of American Legion Riders Post 259.

The traveling exhibit arrived in the city September 22 under a motorcycle escort led by the Legion Riders. Residents, veterans and schoolchildren lined portions of the route as it travelled from Cobleskill along State Route 7 into Oneonta. The public response surprised even organizers, who had spent months preparing for the visit.

Before the Welcome Home Ceremony on September 24, Chase described the response.

“Well, it’s a way to honor people that served in Vietnam and died in Vietnam,” Chase said. “And one part of it that I didn’t expect was just how much it really matters to the community. Like, even people that didn’t serve. For example, on our escort, bringing it to town, there were schools lined up and kids waving flags, and veterans out there in full garb, saluting.”

On September 23, 53 students from Oneonta Job Corps joined veterans and other community volunteers to assemble the memorial. They fitted the panels onto an aluminum frame, building the chevron-shaped replica section by section. The work turned an open area of Neahwa Park into a place modelled after the memorial in the District of Columbia, where visitors could walk toward the rising center, locate a name and make a rubbing.

Jocelyn Plows, an instructor working with the student volunteers, said the project reflected the Job Corps group’s commitment to service: “Anything that promotes togetherness in the community and really helping people out is what we’re here for.”

Volunteer Austin Dingley also connected the assembly work to his family’s military service.

“It was meaningful, you know? It was definitely meaningful–my family, a lot of them were in the military,” he said.

Nearly 200 volunteers were recruited to support the visit, working four-hour shifts throughout the day and night. They welcomed visitors, helped them locate names and guided them through the Mobile Education Center. That 53-foot trailer, which transports the replica, opened into an exhibit about the Vietnam War, the creation of the memorial and the objects visitors have left at the wall in Washington.

The education center also brought the memorial’s national story closer to home. Its Hometown Heroes display featured photographs of service members from the surrounding Otsego County area whose names appear on the wall. An “In Memory Honor Roll” recognized Vietnam veterans who returned home but later died, including those whose deaths were connected to their service. Other displays included a map and timeline, examples of remembrance items, and information about the wall’s history.

The formal Welcome Home Ceremony on September 24 included remarks from Oneonta Mayor Dan Buttermann, Oneonta resident and combat veteran Carlton Cleveland, and retired Navy Lt. David Rees, who spoke about his service in Vietnam. The choice of “welcome home” carried particular meaning for a generation of veterans whose return was often marked by public division over the war rather than recognition of their service.

The Oneonta program continued September 25 with a ceremony focused on remembrance and awareness of post-traumatic stress disorder and Agent Orange. American Legion Post 259 concluded that ceremony with Taps. A brief Evening Taps ceremony followed September 26, and a closing tribute was scheduled shortly before the exhibit closed and disassembly began September 27.

The traveling memorial was unveiled in 1996 and has since visited hundreds of communities, allowing veterans and families who cannot travel to Washington to experience its scale and search for familiar names closer to home. In Oneonta, that purpose was visible not only in the ceremonial program, but also in the students lifting panels, volunteers staffing overnight shifts, motorcyclists escorting the trailer and residents quietly approaching the names.

By the end of the visit, the memorial’s significance could not be measured only by its dimensions or the number of names it carried. For some, it was a first encounter with the human cost of the Vietnam War. For others, it was a place to remember a classmate, relative or fellow service member. And for veterans such as Sluti, it created a public space where survival, loss and duty could be acknowledged together by the community they came home to.

This story was created by student reporters through the OnNY Community Media Lab, a program of SUNY Oneonta and the SUNY Institute for Local News.