Visitors reflect at traveling memorial

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) - The names of 58,000 plus Americans adorn the The Traveling Vietnam Memorial Wall.

Those immortalized men paid the ultimate sacrifice for us and they are remembered in DC, as well on a similar black, monolithic wall.

Saturday, visitors stopped by to pay their respects in their own way at a scaled-down replica of that famous memorial.

Some traced a name off the reflective surface of the wall to keep near and dear. Others left pictures behind so folks can put a brave face to the name.

Either way, just approaching the wall has an effect.

"When I walked through the door, I got the feeling," said visitor Dave Riley. "It just kind of tugs at your heart."

The theme of the wall is sacrifice, something that can come in many forms. It's reflective stone shows spectators an image of themselves within the names it bears.

PHOTOS: The Vietnam traveling memorial

Riley never set foot on the ground in Vietnam, but he did serve in both the Army and the Coast Guard as an aviation survival man.

Riley is a quadruple amputee.

"Being a rescue swimmer I was in and out of the water all the time," Riley. "I got some kind of sinus infection, and it got into my blood stream and turned septic, and I had gangrene and that's how I lost all my limbs."

Riley, now the national Vice Commander of Disabled American Veterans, volunteers his time mentoring our service men and women who come home injured.

But this memorial is for those who, tragically, never made the trip home.

For Vietnam veterans like retired Marine Corps Master Gunnery Sergeant John Thorpe, it's important that we never forget them.

"Basically what, 50 years ago, 40 years ago, that the Vietnam War was on, and we still remember those days and the people that we lost," Thorpe said.

The wall will only be in Mobile until August 16, before heading to Ohio before Labor Day.

The traveling wall is a spectacle in itself, but it's only three-fifths the size of the original in Washington D.C. The wall stands about six feet tall and 300 feet wide, but the one in D.C. is about 4 feet taller and 200 feet wider.

The memorial there is made of reflective, black stone.

People of all ages, like middle schooler Gage Coons, came out to see the wall.

"It's kind of hard, because they died and they served hard for us," Coons said. "So it's kind of hard to see how many people actually died."