The Wall That Heals honored in solemn but uplifting ceremony in Butte (2024)

It began with a prayer on a sunny but crisp morning in Butte.

“And so dear God, bless this solemn gathering,” Father Patrick Beretta said. “Bless all our living Vietnam War veterans and bless this wall — this wall that remembers, this wall that tells stories, this wall that keeps memory alive — this wall that heals.”

In an opening ceremony that was both solemn and uplifting, scores of people gathered at Father Sheehan Park on Thursday to pay homage to The Wall That Heals and the 58,281 men and women it honors who died in the Vietnam War.

The traveling, three-quarter scale replica of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., was assembled on Wednesday and is open to everyone 24-7 through Sunday morning. Lights will shine on it at night.

Marine Sgt. Michael Taapken of Butte and others spent months arranging its trip and stay in Butte, the only place The Wall will be in an eight-state region this year.

“I would like to welcome all of you,” Taapken said to about 200 people at the opening ceremony. “The Gold Star families, our Vietnam veterans and you all — welcome home.”

Former Butte-Silver Bow Commissioner Cindi Shaw led everyone in singing the National Anthem and several people gave brief remarks, including county Chief Executive J.P. Gallagher, who spent three years in the Navy.

Gallagher thanked Taapken, Sue MacPherson and several others for “their commitment and dedication to having this legacy brought to Butte, Montana” and said it honors those “who paid the ultimate sacrifice for their country” in the Vietnam War.

Gallagher said many who made it home have suffered and struggled, including two of his uncles who later died by suicide, but so many people from Montana and Butte have served and continue to serve their country.

“I’m incredibly proud to serve a community that honors their veterans, that recognizes their veterans and continues to support those veterans in all aspects of their daily lives,” Gallagher said.

Mike Lawson, who saw a lot of combat as a Marine during two tours in Vietnam, has spent a lifetime since then in Butte supporting veterans organizations and causes. He has been to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., he said, and watched and walked The Wall in Butte earlier Thursday.

“I felt it, as all of us who were in Vietnam felt it and feel it,” he said.

He read passages from a piece he wrote about serving in Vietnam — what it was like fighting there, killing there, seeing friends die there — and for many, what it was like returning to America.

“We are theones that came home to what we called the world, only to be called baby killers and war criminals, to have things thrown at us, to be spit at, and wonder if the battlefield we left was also going to be a battlefield in a place we call home,” Lawson said.

MacPherson was a longtime friend of Robert Holton of Butte, who was a captain in the U.S. Air Force when his plane was shot down near the Ho Chi Minh Trail in 1969.

When his remains were found and returned to Butte in July 2017, MacPherson and thousands of others gave him a hero’s welcome. Holton’s name is on the Memorial and The Wall That Heals.

During the ceremony Thursday, MacPherson read the names of at least 22 men who were from Butte or joined military here and were killed in Vietnam.

After eachname, a rifle shot rang out, and MacPherson choked up as she said, “Robert Edwin Holton.”

When all the names had been read, Tom Patten put a bugle to his lips and played Taps. During that one minute, it seemed like the only sound around.