The Fox Valley Veterans Breakfast Club and the village of Oswego are making preparations to bring the traveling Middle East Conflicts Wall of Honor to the village this spring.
The Wall of Honor, a visual tribute to military personnel who have died while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, will be on display in the atrium of Oswego Village Hall from May 22 to 31.
“Very few people know about it,” Navy veteran Herschel Luckinbill said.
The exhibit has traveled throughout its home state of Oregon. Oswego will be its first out-of-state destination, traveling some 2,158 miles to get to the Fox Valley.
“It’s never been out of the state of Oregon,” Luckinbill said.
Oswego is honored to be the first town to stage the exhibit outside of Oregon, Oswego Village President Troy Parlier said.
“The exhibit is a reminder of the high price that has been paid for the freedoms we enjoy,” he said.
Oswego Honors Veterans, a 10-day event with various observances in honor of the Memorial Day period, is being planned in the village to coincide with the staging of the Wall of Honor at Village Hall.
“We want to do something special for our heroes who gave the ultimate sacrifice so we can do what we do,” Parlier said.
Hopefully it will provide some comfort to the families and friends of fallen soldiers, he said.
“We expect the attendance will be substantial,” Parlier said.
More Top Picks Mop
Parlier has two sons serving in the Navy – Pierce, 24, and Quinn, 22, are both serving in the Civil Engineering Corps.
The Wall of Honor exhibit features the names and photographs of servicemen and women who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as in other operations in the Middle East.
The exhibit measures roughly 30 feet wide and 50 feet long, depending on the configuration for each location. The exhibit in Oswego will be open 24 hours a day.
Luckinbill was among the volunteers that brought the Vietnam Moving Wall to Oswego in 2017 and Aurora in 2013. An estimated 200,000 people came out in each of those years to see the Vietnam display.
He carried one of the panels of the Vietnam Moving Wall in Oswego that had the names of his two comrades killed while on the USS O’Brien when it received three direct hits from enemy fire on Dec. 23, 1966.
Luckinbill, 74, has been involved in various veterans-related projects since he retired as a sprinkler fitter in 2005.
For a time he escorted Honor Flight veterans to the World War II monument in Washington, D.C. He was a member of the USS Illinois commissioning committee as well.
“As much as I am involved in veterans, we haven’t done much for our Middle East conflict servicemen and women. I know what this means to veterans and the area’s communities,” he said.
The Wall of Honor exhibit was originally created as a visual tribute in 2003 by Alicia Tallman for her senior high school project in Milwaukie, Oregon.
The tribute now features some 33 panels with about 6,100 names and photographs of service personnel killed in action. It also includes those soldiers killed in action during Desert Storm and Desert Shield.
Vets Helping Vets HQ, an Albany, Oregon-based nonprofit charitable organization, was approached and took possession of the display in 2014.
“We are honored to be able to share the exhibit with the rest of the nation,” Vets Helping Vets HQ Operations Manager Pat Mastenbrook said.
The reactions to the exhibit are emotional, Mastenbrook said.
“It is an emotional experience for families and veterans. There are families who come with children who lost a father or mother – those are among the hardest,” she said.
“For our veterans who have served in the Middle East and lost comrades, it is a healing tool for them. Many have remarked how quickly the soldiers are removed with little time for closure or healing for someone they fought next to side-by-side,” Mastenbrook said.
Linda Girardi is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.