The honoring of veterans has been a pillar in American history, but there was a time when it didn’t exist. The Wall That Heals, which was set up at the Meskwaki Settlement from Thursday to Sunday of last week, is a testament to these veterans who lost their lives during the Vietnam War, so they may never be forgotten.

While the black stone in which 58,318 names are carved is a solemn sight, it is a sight that every American should stand before at least once in a lifetime. That is why The Wall That Heals travels to communities around the country to help heal our nation’s wounds of divisiveness over the Vietnam War and heal those veterans whose wounds have gone unattended.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund has gone through great pains to make The Wall That Heals as close to the experience as one would have at the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington D.C. Jim Knotts, a Gulf War veteran who travels with The Wall That Heals, spoke about the traveling memorial.

“This is different because we get to bring this replica to communities around the country,” he said. “And for us, it’s like we’re bringing the names home to these communities from where they came.”

The Vietnam War has always been the wound that never truly healed in America. It took countless lives, and those that returned were never the same. America was truly divided.

While it was a different time in our country, the Vietnam War is unique in American history, as it was the only war where the soldiers were blamed for the war instead of the politicians who sent them off to battle.

Knotts reflected on the great debt he owes to Vietnam veterans for all they have done for future veterans like himself.

“When many of them came home, they were treated extremely poorly. They were called terrible names, many of them couldn’t find a job if people knew they had been in Vietnam,” he said. “And they made a commitment they would never let our country send another generation of men and women into harm’s way without the proper respect and support that they deserve.”

The Vietnam War has been a difficult subject to discuss. When asked about the lack of American schools educating younger generations on the war, Knotts had this to say.

“We have an opportunity to learn about the Vietnam War and what the veterans went through when they returned home firsthand from the veterans themselves, but if you don’t understand that that’s something interesting or something you should know about because you learned about it in school, then you don’t know to seek them out and ask them about their stories,” he said.

The Library of Congress has been working with all veterans to preserve their stories as Knotts mentions.

“We started too late with our World War II generation of veterans in collecting their stories, as they got older and many of them started to pass away,” he said. “And hopefully, we’re learning a lesson from that, and we’re trying to engage more of the Vietnam Veterans to capture their stories before it’s too late and their stories are lost to history.”

Our veterans hold fragments of our history, and we, the citizens they sacrificed to protect, have a duty and honor to remember their stories for generations to come. It is only through hearing their stories that we can truly heal, which is the message The Wall That Heals brings to every community it visits.

After Tama County, The Wall That Heals continued its journey onto Kearney, Neb.