- There might not be a more iconic military memorial in the entire country than the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington DC, but not everyone gets to see it.

That's where this comes in.

It's the half-scale Vietnam Memorial Moving Wall visiting this summer in Newcastle, Wyoming.

I'm Steve Peck of Wyoming PBS.

This is Wyoming Chronicle.

Since its dedication in 1982, the archetypal Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington has been seen in person by as many as 150 million people, acclaimed among the most exceptional veterans testimonials on earth.

The wall nevertheless remains out of reach for many Americans, whether due to distance, travel expense, physical limitations, or other factors.

Hello then to the Vietnam Veterans Moving Wall.

A meticulous scale replica of the real thing, the huge portable monument travels the nation for eight months of every year, bringing the monument experience to the people.

In 2026, both came to Wyoming, the Healing wall to Afton in the west, the moving wall to Newcastle in the east.

On a Saturday morning in August, Wyoming Chronicle went east to New Castle to meet Kathy Levisour and Erin Gray.

How did it happen to come to New Castle, Wyoming?

- It happened to come to Newcastle, Wyoming because we have found a grant writer who wrote a grant that allowed us to bring it here to our community.

And I was searching for a grant writer who could do that for us because of my brother who died as a result of his service in Vietnam.

- So there's a family connection deeply personal to you.

- Yes.

- Is his name on the memorial?

- No.

No, he did not die in Vietnam, but he was poisoned by Agent Orange.

- Yeah, one of the terrible consequences, unknown at the time, but now horribly known.

- Horribly known now.

- In case people don't know, it's a replica of what?

- The original Vietnam Wall, which is on display in Washington DC.

- Permanently there.

- Permanently there.

- You've seen that?

- I have seen that.

- It's quite something, isn't it?

- It is quite something.

It's very moving.

- It is.

I would say the same.

You go to it and it's so unlike what people would think of as a typical war memorial, isn't it?

- Yes, it is.

Yes, it is.

- When you recall going there, what do you remember about that day or that experience?

What was it like to encounter it for the first time?

- It was very moving.

It was very moving.

I'd wanted to go there for a long time and my daughter took me there because she never knew her uncle and she wanted to give me the honor of going to the wall to DC in his memory.

And we got to do that.

It was incredibly moving and she, as someone much younger, got a great experience out of it.

- It has a famous, as a monument, as a memorial has sort of famous history.

It was much talked about at the time.

19-year-old college student designed it, controversial design.

A lot of people didn't like it, didn't want to do it.

It's weathered all of that now.

Now I think, what do you think?

It's an absolute icon of America the way that the Lincoln Memorial is in a way.

Would you agree?

- Yes, absolutely.

It's a wonderful thing.

Every American should see it and that's why they have the traveling malls, the moving walls.

- We talked about Lincoln Memorial or Washington Monument or something.

You couldn't really do a traveling replica of those.

- Nope.

- But because of the way this was made, and I don't know if the artist had that in mind, but it's possible to do it with this.

- Yes.

- And because this is huge.

This is 100 yards of replica here.

How large is this compared to the real one, so to speak?

- It's half size.

- Half the size.

That's big.

- It's big though.

- All the names are there.

- All the names are there.

- You were so impressed by this, that when this grant opportunity came about, and the grant, let me mention, was part of a state program, right?

- Yes.

The state of Wyoming had a certain number of grants that they were issuing for the 250th anniversary of the United States.

- And around Wyoming, there are dozens of communities using these grants and they're all different.

And we've done a handful of shows on the various ones.

This was what came about here.

You didn't even live in Newcastle at the time, did you?

- No.

When I first came aware of building the memorial, I lived in Cheyenne and I had been recently retired and I had taken care of my mother for a while and she passed away from Alzheimer's, so I was looking for something to take my time up.

- So you uprooted your whole life in a way.

- I did.

- And moved from Cheyenne to New Castle.

I did.

Now it wasn't unfamiliar territory, you've told me.

- No.

- What do you mean?

- I grew up in New Castle and I graduated in 1966 and went off to school and many adventures and came back in 2023 to work on the Veterans Memorial for New Castle.

- When you say work on the Veterans Memorial, that's something separate from the visitation of the Memorial.

What memorial are you talking about?

- I'm talking about the Newcastle Wyoming Veterans Memorial, for which we have a committee formed and they've been working for several years to get a Veterans Memorial built here in the city of Newcastle to show respect to our past veterans.

All wars, all services, all situations.

- How is that tied into the few days that the replica wall is going to be here?

Raising awareness or is it more than that?

- It's raising awareness as well as helping to build our funding to build the memorial, which is being done by local craftsmen.

- What's involved?

What did it take to get the Memorial Wall to come here?

Do you just say, "Hey, show up here," or there's a process, I presume?

- There's a process.

Well, for one thing, those grants are only available to Indian tribes or county commissioners.

So I had to go in front of the county commissioners and ask them to back us to the state of Wyoming to get that grant, which they did.

- So then you, New Castle girl from way back, went to the county commissioners and made your pitch.

They were receptive, obviously.

- Yes, they were.

We understood most of the state grants were $8,000, but our grant was actually $10,000.

- And then another grant, you said, from a local organization?

- Yes.

We'd also received a $3,000 grant from the local travel commission to help us with advertising.

- So now there's $13,000 at hand.

- Yes.

- What do you spend it on to get this here?

- Well, you have to... There's a price to bring the wall here, which is a reasonable price and the truck driver's in charge of setting the wall up with local help.

- Transporting the moving wall among its many stops around the nation is a full-time job for one person and one person only.

Do you have a title at your job or what?

Tell us what it is.

- Not really a title.

I guess you could say volunteer/driver/scheduler.

- You're in charge of - - A little bit of everything.

- Getting the Memorial Wall from place to place.

- Yes.

- And you do that in a big truck, right?

- Yes.

- You're talking about an 18-wheeler type truck?

- Nope, nope.

Everything's designed to basically go anywhere.

It's just a three-quarter ton pickup truck with a gooseneck trailer, half size of the wall in Washington.

- Half size, but big.

This is not some small thing.

- But very impressive.

- I hope it must be about six feet to the top or something.

- The panels start at the apex at 68 inches in height.

There also is eight women on the wall.

- Okay.

- Yes.

So it's not strictly men.

It's also women that were over there that were close into combat zones, whether it be mortars coming in, that type of thing.

And they were all nurses, so they were just in a line of fire, but there is eight women on the wall.

Youngest guy, Dan Bullock, of course, he was 14 years old.

- 14 years old.

Yeah, - He was killed at 15 years old.

He joined the Marine Corps at 14.

So I don't know.

Paperwork gets fudged a little bit.

It's not like social security numbers nowadays.

- Harder to do now than it would - Have - Been.

- Harder to do now.

- You're a veteran.

- Yes.

- Tell us what your service was.

- 1997, full years through 2002, I was Bravo Company 27th right off of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, specialized rough terrain unit, airborne rough terrain unit.

- The youngest Vietnam vets are 70 probably, or maybe even older.

- I would say youngest, I would have to estimate probably about 74 to 75, somewhere around there.

- And of course many in their 80s.

- Yeah, because usually the guys that served at like 18, 19 years old, they're around 78, 79 years old right now.

- Time passes.

- Time passes.

- Sure does.

What do you think of the monument itself?

As a veteran, it's effective to you, it's worthy, it's good?

- Oh, it's absolutely... There's no word for it, but besides breathtaking and kind of like a shock and awe when you actually first visit it, you just kind of look at the monument for a lot of new people coming to visit.

There's a lot of people that can't make it to Washington.

- Right, this is sort of - - So that's why John wanted that done back in 1983 after he was there at the dedication in November of 82.

- So right away there was consideration given.

- Yes.

- Could we make a replica so that more people could see it?

Not everyone can get to Washington.

- Absolutely.

- Not everyone might want to get to Washington.

- There's a lot of veterans and families and just regular civilians too that never leave their own city, let alone county or town.

- Sure, - Sure.

- Not everybody can get to Washington or wants to go there, frankly.

And it's a big city.

It's super, super hot.

It's humid.

It's congested.

Here, you can get a very, very similar experience, at least at the monument itself in a small town setting.

He's pulled right up over here and walked over.

- Yes.

- No way to do that in Washington.

- Correct.

- There's nowhere to... Eventually you do walk over, but you haven't just parked 50 yards away like they're doing here.

Right.

That's part of the appeal of it, I guess.

- Yes.

A community event.

- There's specifications.

Here's how if you're going to do this, do it right.

- Yes.

We have to sign a contract with them in fact.

- We're here in last few, well, 10 days or so of August.

This is a Saturday morning.

When did it arrive?

- It arrived Wednesday, the 12th.

Wednesday.

- Takes a while to get it set up, I presume?

- Yes.

We didn't put it... Our contract started on the 13th.

- I see.

- He got here a day early and then our football team came and helped put it up on the following morning at 9:00.

- In Newcastle here, they had the whole football team come out, great bunch of kids, and it was a very fast setup.

- So this is a couple dozen kids or big, strong boys at least.

- Big, strong boys, and it makes everything go smooth.

- You pull in, you unload the truck, and then what's it take to... I mean, you become the foreman at that point, right?

- Yeah, basically.

Yeah.

- Here's how we're going to do it.

Everybody understand?

- Yep.

- And you have your own - - They follow directions very well.

- You're the coach for us that afternoon.

It's a year-round job?

- No.

Usually we travel from April, May through Veterans Day.

- Yeah.

- And then after Veterans Day is when we replace panels every year.

- What happens to them all the time?

- It's just mother nature, high winds, tents blowing against it.

It's inevitable.

It's no different than having a beautiful paint job on anything and if it sits out in mother nature for a long time.

- Visitors themselves are almost universally respectful of it though?

- Yes.

Yeah.

Yes.

- I would think so.

- Sometimes they don't think we got specialized crayons to do rubbings.

We've had it before where somebody wants an etching, but they use a car key or something and they just don't think.

- One of the things that has made the Vietnam Memorial in Washington famous, they are sort of sandblasted, I guess, names in the wall.

- Yes.

- Taking a pencil and a piece of paper and making a rubbing of your loved ones or your buddy's name.

This is a different way of reproducing the names, but you say the rubbings can still be made here.

- Oh, they're beautiful, beautiful rubbings.

And we use lumber crans, not pencils and stuff because the pencils and stuff could go through and scratch the names.

- But you can see it.

- And this is all done silk screening stuff.

This is 43 years later, everything's done in-house and it's done the same way as it was 43 years ago.

- Silk screen.

- Silk screening.

A huge operation.

- I can imagine.

So it's put up in sections.

I think we can see here.

- Yes.

Each - - There's a join.

- Each frame is 41 inches wide and there's two panels per frame.

- And we're at the, what you call the apex, where the most names that you're going to see on any panel are in this general area that we are.

By the time we get down to the end of it, and we'll see that, again, reminiscent of the wall itself in Washington, it narrows.

- Yes.

- And in the first narrowest parts, there's just a name or two there.

- Yes.

- How is it determined how the names are placed?

- Well, it's all chronological by day, month, and year.

So at the apex to our left there at 1959, it runs down the east wall, wraps around the end of the west wall and goes to 1975.

- 1975 is now more than 50 years ago.

- Yes.

- People don't, in case they don't understand what you just said, 1959 is when American troops started being killed in Vietnam.

- Absolutely.

- That's a long time ago.

And 1959 to 75, a long time as well.

- That's a long time.

- Not quite a forever war, but a generation long war.

- Yes.

- For sure.

- There's a few sets of fathers and sons on here, so that if you want to talk about generational, generational, that would be a prime example.

- Where were you before you got to New Castle?

- We were at our shop in the upper peninsula of Michigan, White Pine, and we had a stop in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania that we just came from.

- Yeah.

So long way from Wyoming.

You spent a lot of time on the road.

- A lot of time on the road, and we leave here and we head towards Lockport, New York, which is up upstate.

- You've seen the country now.

- Yes.

- Visited all 48 US continental states, probably.

- Yes.

Yes.

Absolutely.

- Yeah.

Why did you want this to be here, up to and including, so important enough to you that you would move, change your residence to help with the memorial and this as part of supporting the local memorial?

Why go to this effort?

- Because it's an important thing to do for my community that I grew up in.

And my parents and my brother are buried in the local cemetery.

And many of my mates that I graduated from high school with served in Vietnam, and we were fortunate none of them lost their life, but there were two individuals that were killed in Vietnam from Weston County, Wyoming.

One was from Upton and one was from Newcastle.

And their names are on this wall.

- Their names are here.

- Yes.

- You found those, I presume?

- Yes, I found them more than once.

- Were they people or families that you were acquainted with from your time here?

- Yes, I did.

I was in school with the younger brother of Robert that was killed.

- And this is the point.

Even in small town Wyoming, I think New Castle is about 3,500 dropper all around the country.

There aren't many communities or families or individuals that don't have some connection even to Vietnam, but to a veteran, it's virtually everybody does.

- Yes.

- The few days that it's been here, hundreds of people have seen it.

Is someone keeping a head count?

- The first day we counted, it was just under 400 for the first day.

- That seems good to me.

What did you - - Yes.

I think it's very good.

- Very good.

They're watching us today and the shots that we're in see people are coming and going all the time looking at it.

24 hours a day.

- Yes.

- Is that part of the contract or that?

- Yes.

- It is.

- It is.

- So if you bring it, it's got to be open all the time.

- Yes.

And two individuals as security guards 24 hours a day.

- Are people coming in the night or?

- Yeah, not a whole lot, but some.

They get off work at eight o'clock or nine o'clock.

- So you've got some lighting here.

I think people can see that.

- Yeah, that's another thing required in the contract.

- It is.

How long have you been doing this job?

- I believe over 20 years.

- Really?

- So this is the 43rd anniversary for the moving wall to be on the road.

It's been in every US state, different islands in Hawaii, over 20 remote places in Alaska.

And that's why it's the truck and the trailer because everything's in crates.

So for example, John, back in the late 80s and stuff, he actually went to Guam, Saipan, Puerto Rico.

So like American Airlines, I think it was American Airlines at the time, will take the crates off of the trailer, we'll put them on a plane and it'll get sent over.

And then once we get there, we just have a forklift and like a flatbed truck that we load on and we can go to remote places.

- And then you step in again, just like you have done in Newcastle.

It happens there.

It's solid here.

- It is solid.

- It doesn't blow over.

It can get rained on.

- They build a level on grade platform for the wall to sit on.

And that's basically as a visual too, because in DC, the names run all the way down on an angle.

John designed this one for being visible.

- So when you get to the end, - You're not looking at a name on the bottom for a rubbing and stuff.

It's the best setup.

And just like DC, that center line at the apex and the very last name on end of the east wall and on the end of the west wall make a perfectly level plane.

- I see.

- Yeah.

- So a lot of logistics, a lot of design, a lot of creativity.

- A lot of creativity.

- In New Castle, the opportunity to place it were few, I guess.

There are not too many places you wanted to do it.

You found a place here.

How did that come about?

Is that part of the grant?

We have a good place for it.

- Yes, that's a requirement to have a good place for it.

And we actually had two decent sites.

This one is adjacent to where we're going to actually build our memorial, which is just to my left.

And it had enough room.You had to have so many square feet and things like that, and you had to have room to set the wall up facing the certain direction, certain requirements.

So we had this, and up at our museum, they also had an area that would have been satisfactory.

But we wanted to do it here because of the intersections of Highway 65 and 60.

- I think when I was speaking to you a few days ago about coming up here, I said, "Where is it exactly?"

He said, "Drive into town, you're not going to miss it.

Newcastle isn't a super tourist destination, but this time of year, there are lots of out of towners in town, aren't they?"

- Yes, there are.

- And you tell me the reason.

- The motorcycle capital of America.

- Yeah.

- Sturgis is just a little ways away.

- People drive through, I don't know if it's most of them, but many of them - - Many, many, many.

- Ride through New Castle.

Maybe our microphones might be picking them up.

And I can tell you, and you already know this, a lot of them are stopping here.

The bikes are pulling in and stopping and the riders are getting off.

What is that?

And they want to see it.

- Well, a lot of motorcyclists are veterans.

So we have veterans coming really from all over the country and we've had them visit while we were collecting funds to build the memorial who actually came from other countries and stopped to talk with us.

And we gave them a bottle of water, had some conversations.

It's a really good experience to get to know a lot of veterans.

- Do you keep track of the number of places you've been or estimate?

- Yes.

I mean, at one point in time, it was like 13, 50, but we're close to 1500, I think, I believe around 1500 cities in 43 years all across the United States.

Of course, Guam Saipan, Puerto Rico.

- Well received just about everywhere you go, I would - Assume.

Everywhere we go.

And of course Canada.

I can't forget about Canada.

That's right.

There's a lot of Canadian citizens that came and fought on behalf of the United States.

- I'm sure they did.

I guess part of the contract you have to have before everybody feels good about it is understanding that you'd be coming to a place where they want you to come.

They'll be glad to see you.

- Absolutely.

It's never used for any type of political platform.

- Interesting.

- It's still emotional to this day, meaning especially children that never met their father, so that's rough.

But I've also had places and stuff where a gold star mother and a father been visiting their son's name.

And then if you just sit back and you listen to stories and stuff of them talking, just how he was as a child and everything, it just... - Every one of these people was a baby in diapers.

- Yes.

At one point.

And it's very emotional.

School kids will come and they'll get a good education.

And then for example, they'll be like, "Well, how many people in your family?"

And that type of thing as far as small town population.

And then they kind of get it.

Basically everybody in your town just disappeared.

- Yeah.

There are more people.

There are more names on this wall than there are... Well, I guess there's a town or two in Wyoming that have this many, but not most.

- Not most.

- Not this one, not where we're headquartered either.

It's a lot of names.

And there are wars bigger than this one even.

- Absolutely.

- It's something that I've thought about.

It's big enough, enough names where it can just be awesome, small enough where you can get them all on.

You couldn't do it for the Civil War, which is what, 600,000?

- Yes.

- Couldn't be done.

And small enough then that it could be replicated and taken around.

There are other Vietnam Memorial-based traveling exhibits, right?

- Yes.

- Have you been involved in any of those or always with this one?

- Always with The Moving Wall.

The Moving Wall was originally called The Healing Wall.

And then later on, it was just somebody having a conversation, a gold star mother, and she said, "It's just so moving."

So then it got dubbed The Moving Wall.

- Double meaning.

It moves around and it is deeply, deeply moving.

Great name.

The Healing Wall, that's a name though that now is in use for another one.

That's been in Wyoming, I think, as well.

- Yes, that has been in Wyoming.

It's been everywhere also.

I believe it was like 95, 1996, somewhere around there that they started up.

- So what sort of training did you need before you were given the responsibility to do this?

- I actually went with John Devitt, the founder of The Wall, on the road with him.

And I just got... Basically, he showed me everything.

He showed me how to set up, take down, silk screening operations.

I mean, absolutely everything over the years.

And I was just going to be a backup in case something happened.

I could just go there and rescue the wall and make sure it made its next destination.

And it was less than that, less than a year later, and it really wasn't a job interview.

He just kind of said, "Would you like to be a part of the wall?"

So I was like, "Well..." Thought about it for maybe about five minutes, maybe not even that long.

And I went home and told my wife, Lisa, I said, "Well, we're going to go volunteer on the road with the wall."

And here we are.

Here you are.

That was in 2006, and here I am in 2026.

- So life on the road, you get used to a lot of hours, a lot of miles, a lot of hotel, motel rooms, but it suits you.

- In a way, yes.

- For the most part.

- Yep.

Yep.

It's not living a lap of luxury, I guess you could say, because just living out of hotel rooms and stuff isn't... People think it'd be cool, but you miss your home.

- How many people have your job in this country?

One?

I mean, there are people who drive the other replica walls around who - - It's very limited.

- But not many.

- Not many.

- Handful.

- Handful.

- Yeah.

Proud of your work, I presume.

- Yes.

Yes.

- And then it's only going to be here for a few days then.

- It'll be leaving Monday at four o'clock.

- Football team coming back?

- No, I think it's going to be the wrestlers.

- They probably have practice, the football team does.

The dogies, correct?

- Yes, the dogies.

- When it came here, do you think it does justice to your brother and those people and the memorial itself?

- Yes, I do.

I do.

It attaches those memories to something solid, and that makes them grow and become more important for me, and I think for many of my friends and townmates as well.

- I know you don't claim all the credit, but I wonder if it would have happened without you.

You're planning on staying in New Castle from now on?

- Yep.

- You are.You're back home.

- Back home, yeah.

- Good.

Thanks for showing this to us and for being with us on Wyoming Chronicle.

- Well, you're welcome.

I'm glad to do it.