A place to remember

Found by the banks of the Taunton River at the intersection of President Avenue and Davol Street, Fall River’s Veterans Memorial Bicentennial Park has lived up to its name.

On May 15, 2021, the park dedicated its 80-percent scale replica of Washington, D.C.’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall with a ceremony attended by dignitaries, including Lt. Gov. Karen Polito, and those who worked to bring the monument to the city, including the city’s Veterans Council and Wall Committee. October 3, 2021 marked the official unveiling of the Italian-American Veterans Memorial monument that honors Fall River residents of Italian descent who died in World War II (10), the Korean War (three) and Vietnam (three). They join a dazzling yet somber array of monuments memorializing the local departed war veterans of the 20th and 21st centuries. Along the pathway that leads to the Vietnam Memorial Wall you’ll find monuments dedicated to the Gulf War and Global War on Terrorism, Korean War Veterans, and Gold Star Families, which was sponsored by the Gold Star Mothers organization, dedicated to those whose sons and daughters have died in service to American armed forces. The largest of these memorials to our war dead centers the park: the World War II monument that recreates, on an enormous scale, the famous Iwo Jima statute of U.S. Marines raising the American flag at the top of the once-Japanese-held Pacific island. It was officially dedicated on November 6, 2005, in time for Veterans Day that year. (Dedication

remarks were delivered by James Bradley, co-author of the bestseller Flags of Our Fathers, which tells the story of the battle and of the lives of the soldiers depicted by the monument, including that of Bradley’s father.) Surrounding its base Mi d Chael J. eCiCCo you’ll find a walkway of bricks inscribed with more local veterans’ names. Of the latest monuments to join this display, retired Fall River Veterans Agent Ray Hague said he sought to move the Italian-American War monument, sponsored by the Italian War Veterans Post 10, from the parish grounds of the Holy Rosary Church in Fall River when the church was closed. In the late 1990s, local lawyer Brian Cunha bought the Newport home of the designer of the original Korean War memorial in Arlington, Virginia, and gave the mold of that design to Fall River, Hague said. The city installed the resulting recreation of the original at Bicentennial Park in 2001. A Congressional Medal of Honor recipi-

ent made the placement of the Gold Star Families monument in Fall River possible by granting $5,000 of seed money to the city for the project, Hague said. Hershel Woodrow “Woody” Williams, a veteran of the Iwo Jima campaign in World War II, has made it his mission through his Woody Williams Foundation to donate that amount to any community planning such a project. City Veterans Council members then designed it and installed it in 2017. The Global War on Terrorism monument was built using money left over from this Gold Star Families effort.

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The plan to bring the replica Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Wall to Fall River started in 2017 by a vote of a local veterans services organization that then formed a hand-picked Memorial Wall Committee. Support from the city and the community and monetary donations quickly followed, and the project broke ground in October of that year. The total cost was $1.4 million, and that much money was raised by a combination of pledges, grants, and donations. “We got a ton of cooperation,” said Memorial Wall Committee chair and Vietnam War veteran Joseph Marshall, “thanks to fundraising and helpful vendors.” Marshall said it would been officially unveiled in June of 2020 if it weren’t for the pandemic shutdowns. Still, it’s a great accomplishment to have it here at all. Only four communities in the country have been allowed to host the National Wall Organization’s permanently placed replica of Washington D.C.’s wall. The four must be regionally exclusive, at least 50 miles apart. The other three locations are in Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Utah. Fall River’s wall is 360 feet long, eight feet high, and displays 58,489 names, including 13,050 service members from Massachusetts and 211 from Rhode Island. The names are listed chronologically, by when they died in action. In the grass circle fronting the Wall, you’ll find a “100th Anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War” time capsule to be opened on April 30, 2075. “People call and tell us they don’t have the words to thank us,” Marshall said. “They can finally visit

“It’s a very good their son. People leave mementos behind at thing for Fall River the wall. We’ll store and Massachusetts them at the state pier locker when they’re that it’s here. The not weather-resistant. I’ve seen veterans hug meaning and the at the wall. We are just trying to keep the spirit and the value memory of this war alive.” of this wall will A monument to reach everyone.” wartime sacrifice, he said, makes a veteran feel proud “that the public is committed to honoring their brothers in arms. After that feeling, you become somber, quiet. It’s therapeutic. It’s healing. It’s a very good thing for Fall River and Massachusetts that it’s here. This is what happens when a city and a community work together. The meaning and the spirit and the value of this wall will reach everyone.” The Veterans Memorial Bicentennial Park itself was dedicated in October of 1978. The project first broke ground in July 1977 “to commemorate the 100th Birthday of our Nation.” The park offers access to the Wall Mobile app at vvmf.org/app. All monuments are open during park hours, from dawn to dusk. MiChael J. deCiCCo has worked as a writer for over 30 years. He is also the author of two award-winning young adult novels, Kaurlin’s Disciples and The Kid Mobster. He lives with his wife Cynthia in New Bedford.