The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Moving Wall June 24, 2009

The opening ceremony is scheduled for 6 p.m. June 25.

Three Vietnam veterans from California came up with the idea for the Moving Wall in 1983 after visiting the permanent memorial to that war in Washington. They started the project with $2,500 of their own money and have received donations from organizations and individuals across the county to help share the wall with the rest of the nation. Meanwhile, two other replica moving walls were built to handle the demand for their visits. There has never been an admission fee to see any of the walls in the 1,155 communities they have appeared in so far.

The structures list the names of U.S. military casualties in Vietnam from 1959 to 1975, but the moving wall is dedicated to all 2.7 million veterans who served in Vietnam during that time. The nonprofit Vietnam Combat Veterans Ltd. assigns two-member crews to deliver the wall in pieces and assemble it at each stop.