CRIVITZ, Wis. — Harold Fetterhoff hit record on his cellphone and walked the length of a traveling replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Rows of names were captured in the video as he moved along at a steady pace.
“I took the video for my wife, she can’t walk right now,” said Fetterhoff, a Vietnam veteran who lives in Crivitz. “I’m just bringing it back to her so she could see it too.”
He served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps in Vietnam in 1971 and 1972. Fetterhoff knows some of the names on the wall. He hasn’t yet gotten close enough to find them individually.
“It’s just paying respect. That’s all it is. I lost a few over there,” he said.
The Wall That Heals is a 3/4 scale traveling replica of the memorial in Washington, D.C. It includes 58,281 names of service members killed in action in Vietnam.
The memorial is free and open to the public 24 hours a day through 2 p.m. on June 4.
Rebecca Deschane is part of the committee that worked to bring the wall to Crivitz.
“This creates an opportunity for them to come locally, but it also creates an opportunity for those who may be working through some trauma or some experiences where they aren’t quite ready to get to DC and see the wall,” she said. “Being here, they can be with friends and family in a comfortable community that they know.”
Deschane’s dad served in Vietnam. She helped him carry one of the panels inscribed with the name of a fellow Crivitz resident.
“We knew my dad went. We knew he served. We knew he was proud of his service, but we just didn’t talk about it,” she said. “This is an opportunity for us to learn more and it creates those moments when you’re working with a veteran and they’re thanking you for bringing this and having it here for them when we should be thanking them for the service and sacrifices they’ve made.”
Fetterhoff visited the memorial the last time it was in Crivitz in 2018.
“Everyone needs a chance to come out and take a look at it. Pay respect, that’s all it is,” he said. “I remember coming home and the stuff we went through was bull, but, it’s been a while and I’m just glad to be back and I’m glad America, we’re going to be alright.”
The Wall That Heals is located at the Crivitz-Stephenson Area Museum at N104 Oak Street in Crivitz.