Although millions of visitors experience the healing power of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial each year, millions more have not had the opportunity.  Many don't have the resources to make the journey.  Some may find the war's legacy too painful to confront, particularly as strangers in  an unfamiliar city.  Others may not yet understand the legacy, or their own connection to it.  The Wall That Heals is a half-scale replica -- exact to the letter and inch -- of the original Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.  It travels across America to cities and towns great and small, speaking, not only of the loss, but also of the lives of more than 58,000 men and women -- our parents, children, neighbors and friends.

One of the unexpected gifts of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is that it transcends the war in Vietnam to help our nation renew its relationship with veterans of all wars.  The number of veterans in society today is much smaller than it was a half century ago.  The Vietnam Veterans Memorial has helped all veterans find healing and a powerful connection with the common military experience.  Non-veterans, from school children to parents and grandparents, find in The Wall a deeper appreciation of their sacrifice, service, and courage, and draw from the experience lessons for today's life and life in the future.

The Wall That Heals offers another powerful gift to the nation:  an opportunity for the souls enshrined on the Memorial to journey back to the places they called home, to exist among friends and family once more, not in a monumental city, but in the comfort and peace of familiar surroundings.

Visitors to the Memorial touch The Wall and touch each other's lives in innumerable ways.  The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is grateful for the opportunity to bring The Wall That Heals home to America.

About the Replica
Each of the two walls is approximately 123' long.  The walls meet at an angle of 121 degrees and rise to a height of approximately 5' at their vertex.  Each of the more than 58,000 names on The Wall is laser-etched nit panels of reflective black, powder-coated heavy aluminum supported by a structural aluminum frame. 

A sophisticated database of names and their precise arrangement on the walls had to be created in order to engrave the panels.  The database was then linked to a giant computer-operated laser system developed solely for the purpose of engraving the traveling Wall.  The system etched image areas of a specific size, requiring remarkably precise calibration across a wide field in order to match partially formed letters and lines.

The Order of the Names
The list of names begins at the vertex of the walls below the year of the first casualty, and continues to the end of that wing.  It resumes at the beginning of the opposite wing, ending at the vertex, above the date of the last death.

This meeting of beginning and ending signifies and epoch in American society.