HUACHUCA CITY �” The park in this community is full of names �” tens of thousands of names �” most unknown to many residents.

The names are of the GI Joes and Janes who have died in service protecting America’s freedom.

On Tuesday, a replica of the Vietnam Wall in Washington, D.C., inscribed with the names of more than 58,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen who died in and around Vietnam, as well as gold dog tags inscribed with the names of the fallen from times of conflict since the end of the Vietnam War, including the current combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, are on display through Thursday afternoon.

At a short ceremony opening the American Veterans Traveling Tribute event, which is being sponsored by Huachuca City’s VFW Post 10342, Huachuca City Mayor Pro Tem Dave Perry lost his composure a couple of times when he talked about the significance of honoring those who gave, as Abraham Lincoln noted in his famous Gettysburg Address “their last full measure of devotion.”

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“There are the names of too many friends and classmates” on the Vietnam Wall, he said.

Even though he has been in Washington, D.C., on many occasions, Perry said he has never been able to go and see the actual memorial.

But this time, the wall, an 80 percent replica of the original, came to his hometown, and see it he did.

Clifford and Norma Lavinder have wanted for years to see the wall in Washington, D.C.

He is a Vietnam War veteran, as well as having served during World War II and the Korean War.

Now 86, he served in the Army’s Signal Corps for 28 years, serving in the China-Burma-India Theater during World War II. All of his combat tours during his career were in Asia. He is a retired sergeant first class.

For his wife of 62 years, seeing the wall and the names brings home the cost to families.

“I’m speaking on behalf of the families who lived through it,” she said.

In every war families never know if a knock on the door or a phone call will bring bad news, Norma Lavinder said.

The wives had to keep the family intact “and protect the children,” she noted. That is still the role of a GI’s family, although sometimes it is the husband who is told his wife has been killed.

“Huachuca City has a large population of veterans, retired military,” Perry said.

The three-day display is dedicated to those people, he said. The Vietnam Wall has been on display in the area before, twice at the Veterans’ Memorial Park in Sierra Vista and once in Tombstone.

A small contingent of volunteer GIs from Fort Huachuca’s 111th Military Intelligence Brigade, 11th Signal Brigade, Raymond W. Bliss Health Center, the Noncommissioned Officers Academy and the Air Force’s 314th Training Detachment helped put up the wall and other panels holding some dog tags that identify those who serve in the military.

The display “shows once again, Arizona is very, very proud of our heroes,” Perry said.

Many names on the wall are from the state, as are those engraved on the dog tags.

Steve Doty, chairman of the American Veterans Traveling Tribute, said the mission of the organization is “to honor, respect and remember those who have served.” And bringing the smaller version of the Vietnam Wall to the people is a way to help those “who can’t go to Washington, D.C.,” he said.

“We are not making a political statement,” he said.

The traveling Vietnam Wall has gone around the nation for years, and now it is joined by the dog tag displays and another panel that lists the names of those who died in the terrorist attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

One of the dog tags bears the name of the son of Huachuca City council member Casey Mellen who was killed in Iraq. The senior Mellen and his wife were at the opening ceremony, which drew a small noontime crowd. New tags are added as names are released by the military. The most recent one is of a GI killed in Afghanistan on March 14.

There also are panels listing all the conflicts the United States has been involved with starting with the Revolutionary War.

And there are a number of unknown skirmishes in which members of the American military have died, such as an action in 1855 in Fiji that took the life of one service member, the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 in China in which 130 Americans were killed, and the nation’s little known war with France, called the Franco-American War from 1798 to 1800 that claimed 20 American lives.

Because of the availability of lighting, the display will be open to the public through the night and will be protected by the Arizona Rangers. The displays will be taken down at 3 p.m. Thursday as the tour heads to Tucson for a three-week stint at the Pima County Fairgrounds.

For Perry, the bottom line of what the event is designed to do is to show the cost in human lives that Americans have paid for the country’s liberties.

“The freedom that we enjoy is not free,” he said.

About the event

The free displays will be open to the public all day today and until 3 p.m. on Thursday at the park behind Huachuca City Town Hall, 500 N. Gonzlaes Blvd.

To help defray the cost of the American Veterans Traveling Tribute, Huachuca City VFW Post 10342 will be hosting an all-you-can eat spaghetti dinner from 5 to 7 p.m. today at the post hall at 1301 N. Cochise St. The cost of the meal is $6 per person.

For information about the program, go to http://www.avtt.org.

HERALD/REVIEW senior reporter Bill Hess can be reached at 515-4615 or by e-mail at bill.hess@svherald.com.