Never Forgotten
Photo by Lawrence Tabudlo
This year marked the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War. For the generation of Americans who lived through that time, images of the frantic helicopter evacuations from the U.S. embassy are seared into their memory.
But for others, the Vietnam War is something that happened long before they were born, its causes and contours lost to the past. It doesn’t help that the Vietnam War was highly divisive.
As a result, many Vietnam War veterans never spoke about their time in the war. Their stories are in danger of being lost to future generations.
An exhibit making its way to Kapolei in early January hopes to help bridge that gap. The Wall That Heals is a three-quarters-scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. It will be at University of Hawai‘i–West O‘ahu Jan. 14-19.
Vietnam War veteran Eddie Freeman and his wife, Susan Bauer, are leading the effort to bring The Wall to O‘ahu.
“It’s not just a wall, it’s a living monument to these people, people (who died there), 278 of them from Hawai‘i,” says Freeman. “We gotta keep their names alive if nothing else.”
The pair had volunteered at The Wall when it came to Hilo on Hawai‘i island and Wailuku on Maui in 2024. They were so moved by the experience, they wanted to bring it to O‘ahu.
“The biggest thing that I got out of it is everybody (that visited The Wall) was a Vietnam War veteran,” says Freeman. “So, speaking with someone there was much easier than speaking with someone that had never been to Vietnam. Going to The Wall That Heals Hilo opened up a whole new day for me. I got to actually talk about it and now I can talk to Susan about it.”
Bauer confirms that Vietnam had not come up during their 40-plus years of marriage. The pair had moved to Hawai‘i separately in 1975 — she to attend University of Hawai‘i; he to re-acclimate after finishing his tours of duty in Vietnam. They met, began dating, got married and eventually settled down in the Aloha State.
“Now Eddie and I can at least talk about it because it was just something we did not talk about,” Bauer says. “We just moved to Hawai‘i and went on our happy way.”
Freeman had been a crew chief with Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 463 from 1972 to 1975. Helicopter pilots and crewmen like him took part in the evacuation of Saigon. They also delivered mail, hauled equipment and transported bodies.
“We did everything. Our motto was, ‘You call, we haul,’” says Freeman, who went on to work on the same helicopters he flew on in Vietnam as a civilian contractor at U.S. Marine Corps Base Hawai‘i in Kāneʻohe. “It didn’t matter what you needed. If you were in the middle of something and you got overrun, we actually flew there to help get you out of that position and move you around.”
Bauer, meanwhile, had protested the Vietnam War as a teen. But she says that over the years her feelings evolved — especially as related to how returning soldiers were treated. She, too, remembers feeling moved by what she encountered in Hilo.
“I had this one particular experience where I ended up talking to the mom of a guy who went to Vietnam (and never came back),” she says. “And then his fiancee showed up. (These two women) hadn’t seen each other in 50 years, since the day this guy left for the war. They ended up having dinner together that night in Hilo. It was stuff like that that changed so much of my thinking.”
By the time they were wrapping up on the Big Island, the couple knew they’d be volunteering on Maui, too. And by the time they got to Maui, they were planting the seeds for O‘ahu.
Bringing The Wall to the state’s most populous island required coordinating with city, state and federal officials to secure permits and permissions, and to iron out proper protocol. After all, The Wall That Heals is administered by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund — the same nonprofit that oversees the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Because of all that entailed, Freeman and Bauer had been aiming for a November 2026 exhibit. When the date was moved up by 10 months, they scrambled to make it work. The pair say they couldn’t have done it without help from sponsors such as Pasha Hawai‘i, which is shipping The Wall, and the Kailua and Honolulu Elks Lodges. The couple are members of the Kailua Elks Lodge, and connections they made there helped them reach other veterans groups.
They say folks they met while volunteering on the Big Island and Maui were also a tremendous help. They’ve been working around the clock to create an experience that will be both educational and emotionally impactful.
When The Wall arrives on island, it will be accompanied by a motorcade escort to UH-West O‘ahu, where there will be a blessing ceremony. Then, local families whose loved ones are named on The Wall will accompany the wall’s panels for installation. Volunteers will take care of the assembly, but loved ones may help if they are able and willing.
Once completed, The Wall will stretch 375 feet in length and stand 7 1/2 feet high at its tallest point. It will be erected in a chevron shape, with names listed by day of casualty starting at the apex and continuing along the eastern side of The Wall, picking up again on the western side and working its way back to the apex. The shape is symbolic — it joins the beginning and end of the war.
Like the original memorial in Washington, D.C., visitors will be able to take rubbings of the names of service members who appear on The Wall.
The trailer that brought The Wall to the site, meanwhile, will be transformed into a mobile education center.
“They actually raise the walls (of the trailer) and the walls become the roof of this education center,” Bauer says. “So there’s a 15-foot spread out from the trailer on both sides. It’s really cool.”
Adds Freeman, “As you walk along this 53-foot trailer container, you will start seeing images that are projected on a screen, so as you walk down you can see footage from Vietnam and stories of soldiers that wrote home, or never got home.
“You’ll see the mementos that were left behind by soldiers who were killed. These are the things that were found after the war, like their boots and their wallets and other stuff.
“There were over 400,000 items left at (the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.) by different visitors and some of those items are included as well.”
Volunteers will be available to lead group tours, such as school excursions, but individual tours of the education center and The Wall will also be available. Freeman and Bauer say group tours must be booked in advance online.
The Wall itself will be open to the public 24 hours a day. Modern LED lighting will ensure visitors can read the names on The Wall at night.
“There’s a surprising number of people that come in the middle of the night by themselves or with someone,” Bauer notes.
She says a big reason she and Freeman wanted to bring The Wall to Kapolei instead of urban Honolulu is because the wide open space of the West side is more conducive to such quiet moments of contemplation. Those moments can be just as important to one’s healing as any public ceremony.
