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Vietnam Veterans Memorial: Putting Faces to Names

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund wants a photo for every name on "The Wall" in D.C.

 
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A small U.S. flag stands at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.
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What if you could put a face to every name on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial?

The VVMF hopes you can.

The National Call for Photos is a project organized by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund to match a headshot or portrait photograph to every service member listed on The Wall.

The pictures will be displayed in an exhibit at the future Education Center at The Wall, an underground visitors center to be built near the Vietnam Veterans and the Lincoln memorials.

Everyday, the center will celebrate the birthdays of service members who died during the Vietnam War by featuring their photos on a giant digital wall.

So far, more than 25,000 veterans have complete profiles with at least one photograph, according to George Pojani, a research associate at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. These profiles are currently featured on The Virtual Wall, an online database of the Memorial's veterans.

Pojani still needs 64 photographs of service members to complete the profiles of Richland County veterans.

To locate photos for the project, contributors can visit www.vvmf.org/thewall and search for veterans who enlisted in their area. The VVMF recommends contacting family and friends of the veterans to find photographs or visit local libraries and search through yearbooks or newspaper obituaries.

To submit a photograph, contributors should obtain a high quality scan of the image and post a remembrance at http://www.vvmf.org/remembrances. The VVMF will send an email to contributors when their photograph is posted with a matching profile.

Relatives of service members with complete profiles are encouraged to submit photographs to the VVMF, even if there is already a photo available.

Pojani says that the contributors to the National Call for Photos will help improve the visitor's experience at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

"It's a place where people can go back and find stories about all the casualties on the Wall," Pojani said about the future Education Center. "It will be more personal than just names on the Wall."

Click here for the list of the 64 Richland County names that need photos. If you have a photo of a name on the list, add it to this story.

Related Topics: Vietnam, Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, and Vietnam veterans

William Steve Brodie

11:25 am on Sunday, May 20, 2012

What a great idea! In today's digital world there is no reason now that memorials should not have pictures to go with the names. Let them be remembered in more than name.

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Chris Winston

5:42 pm on Sunday, May 20, 2012

Thank you, William, for your support. We will work this week to get to folks in local VFWs and American Legions, but if you know of anyone who may be able to help us find some of these folks, please let me know.

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