SOURCE:The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund
6/15/2015 4:11 PM
Forty years after the end of the Vietnam War, American service members continue to feel the effects of their service. There are 58,307 names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial; names of men and women who died on the battlefield of the Vietnam War. Those men and women are honored on a daily basis by everyone who sees The Wall. Many thousands more died as a result of the Vietnam War, but their deaths do not fit the Department of Defense criteria for inclusion on The Wall. On In Memory Day, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF) honors the veterans who returned home but whose lives were cut short by their service.
On June 20, 2015 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., VVMF will host more than 1,000 attendees at the seventeenth annual ceremony on the East Knoll of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. This year, 165 individuals will be honored during the ceremony. The master of ceremonies will be Capt. Denis Faherty, USN (ret.) and former Deputy Director of the National Strategic War Gaming Center, National Defense University. The keynote speaker for the day will be Jim Knotts, CEO of VVMF.
The In Memory Day ceremony is a solemn ceremony attended by friends and family and includes the presentation of Colors and the singing of the National Anthem. During the ceremony, the names of all the honorees are read aloud and certificates bearing the honorees’ names are placed at The Wall. These certificates are later collected by the National Park Service and stored in a permanent archive.
More than 2,000 service members have been honored since the In Memory program began. For more information on the In Memory program and to search the In Memory Honor Roll, go to: www.vvmf.org/InMemoryProgram
About VVMF and the Education Center at The Wall
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF) is the nonprofit organization that built the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (The Wall) in Washington, D.C. in 1982. VVMF is dedicated to preserving the legacy of The Wall, promoting healing and educating future generations about the impact of the Vietnam War through programs, ceremonies and education.
Three decades later, the mission continues as VVMF raises funds to build the Education Center at The Wall. The Center will be an interactive learning facility on the National Mall where our military heroes’ stories and sacrifice will never be forgotten. The Education Center will feature the faces and stories of the more than 58,000 men and women on The Wall and honor America’s Legacy of Service, including those serving in our nation’s Armed Forces today. The lead gift for the campaign to build the Education Center at The Wall was provided by Time Warner, Inc. To learn more about VVMF and the Education Center at The Wall, visit www.vvmf.org or call 866-990-WALL.
– See more at: http://www.vvmf.org/news/article=In-Memory-Day-Ceremony-to-honor-165-Vietnam-veterans-whose-lives-were-cut-short-by-their-service#sthash.ozgtchwJ.dpuf
http://www.vvmf.org/news/article=In-Memory-Day-Ceremony-to-honor-165-Vietnam-veterans-whose-lives-were-cut-short-by-their-service
