When Steven Stenersen, coordinator for the Veterans Resource Center at Santiago Canyon College, got word that the Wall that Heals was coming to the city of Orange, he saw it as an opportunity for SCC’s student veterans to be of service to their fallen brothers and sisters and the veteran community as a whole.
The Wall that Heals, which was on display Oct. 2-5 in Grijalva Park in Orange, is a three-quarter scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. that bears the names of the more than 58,000 U.S. service members who were killed or lost during the Vietnam War.
A group of nearly a dozen members of the SCC chapter of Student Veterans of America helped to construct the traveling exhibit, which consists of 140 numbered panels, support structures, sliding panels and foundations.
“When they served, they had that sense of purpose,” said Stenersen, himself a Marine Corps veteran. “And when they get out, that’s something they lose. And so that’s something I’m trying to bring here. They love to give back. They love to help others.”
The student veterans handled much of the physical labor involved in piecing the wall together and securing it to the ground.
More than 5,000 people paid their respects at the wall, which was available to visitors 24 hours a day while it was in town, said Doug Redding, president of the Wall that Heals – Orange, the nonprofit formed for the sole purpose of raising the funds needed to bring the wall to the city of Orange.
“I had no idea it was going to be as large as it was, and that surprised me the most,” said Adam McManamy, student services coordinator for the resource center’s TRiO Veterans Program, which provides a variety of services to student veterans. “It was just incredible, and it was really powerful to see some of the data. I think it said that a couple fathers and sons were on the wall, how many brothers were on the wall and how many nurses were on the wall.”
McManamy has been working with veterans for 10 years, including the past four at the Veterans Resource Center at SCC, and while not a veteran himself, he comes from a family with two generations of veterans.
His father served in the Air Force, and both of his grandfathers served in World War II, including one who was a prisoner of war.
“I feel like I had a duty to serve in some capacity,” he said. “And so, this is kind of how I see that working out.”
Along with the SCC student veterans, fire academy students from Santa Ana College also volunteered during the three-day event, Redding said.
In total, more than 250 volunteers contributed to the event. Most are residents from the community who signed up through Love Orange, a local nonprofit that provides a free volunteer management service, Redding said.
“All funding and volunteer support came directly from Orange and surrounding local communities, an important detail that was part of our mission statement,” he said.
Stenersen learned about the Wall’s visit to Orange and the opportunities to volunteer from the Veterans Resource Center’s partnership with American Legion Post 132 in Orange.
The original Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington D.C., was completed in 1982 and is in Constitution Gardens, just northeast of the Lincoln Memorial.
The original memorial measures nearly 500 feet long and more than 10 feet high at the apex, decreasing to ground level at each end.
Names are listed by the day of casualty.
Debuting in 1996, The Wall that Heals is 375 feet long and stands 7.5 feet high at its tallest point.
Elks Lodge 1475 in Orange applied to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, the nonprofit that built and manages the wall in Washington, D.C., and maintains The Wall that Heals, to bring the replica wall to Orange.
Observances included an opening ceremony on Oct. 2 and a special ceremony recognizing those impacted by Agent Orange, a highly toxic defoliant used during the Vietnam War.
After the closing ceremony on Oct. 5, City of Orange Fire Department cadets assisted with disassembling the wall and staging it into the semi-truck for departure.