For locals who have ever wanted to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., but can’t make the trip, fear not — the wall is coming to Delaware County.

The Wall That Heals, a three-quarter-scale replica of the memorial, will be in Liberty Township’s Havener Park from Sept. 12-15. Admission is free. The traveling memorial will be making its only stop in Ohio this year in Delaware County.

Ohioan Maya Lin designed the moving monument in 1982, which has the names of the 58,281 Americans who perished in the war etched in its stone. While some deemed the design as controversial at first, it soon became a must-see attraction in our nation’s capital, and a much-imitated form of memorialization since.

In 1996, a 375-foot-long, up to 7.5-foot-high replica that can be moved began making the rounds, courtesy of the nonprofit organization Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. The Wall That Heals has been shipped in a 53-foot trailer to more than 700 locales in the United States, Canada and Ireland. Once the structure is removed and assembled, the trailer itself contains an exhibit about the Vietnam War that can be viewed.

The website britannica.com said the Vietnam War lasted from 1954-1975 and was considered part of the larger Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. It is described as “a protracted conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam and its allies in South Vietnam, known as the Viet Cong, against the government of South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States.” It is also known as the Second Indochina War.

The Vietnam War began after North Vietnam had defeated the French in the First Indochina War (1946-1954), and it sought unification with South Vietnam. The U.S. began introducing military advisers to the region early on, becoming larger in scale and actively engaged in combat during the 1960s. After much soul-searching and internal strife, the U.S. withdrew, and North Vietnam subsequently invaded and took South Vietnam. All told, more than three million civilians and combatants died in the conflict.

Like the original wall, visitors can use paper and pencil to make rubbings of names from The Wall That Heals.

The “Delaware County visit is hosted by the Delaware County Veterans Service Office in partnership with the Liberty Township Parks Department,” said a news release issued by the county.

For more information, visit https://thewallthathealsohio.com/ or https://www.vvmf.org/The-Wall-That-Heals/.

Assistant Editor Gary Budzak photographs and reports on stories in eastern Delaware County and surrounding areas.