Efforts in Ontonagon County to hold Vietnam wall museum

ROCKLAND – The names of nine Ontonagon County men are carved on the Vietnam Moving Wall, and an effort is underway to turn that wall into a museum in Ontonagon County.

The moving wall is one of two which toured the United States and foreign counties after the close of the war. One was founded by John Devitt in 1984 who had connections with the community of Rockland. As the years passed there was less interest of communities in absorbing the cost of bringing the wall to their area.

Through those years since 1984, the wall has visited every state in the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, Guam and Saipan. The wall also was viewed in Rockland and White Pine and was winter-stored in White Pine. Jennie Kanniainen  of Rockland worked with Devitt in scheduling and arraigning the movement of the wall from community to community.  It was viewed in 1,300 communities through the years.

In each place the wall was viewed, hundreds of mementos were laid at the base. Letters to dead solders written by their parents, wives, children and sweethearts were left there. Many of the medals the slain soldiers were awarded were placed beneath the section where the name appeared. The memorabilia has been preserved at each stop and, according to Joy Koskelin, Treasurer of the Museum committee, there are about 80,000 cubic feet of artifacts.

Jennie broached the idea of housing the wall and artifacts in a museum but that posed a problem because of the length of the wall which is 300 feet.  Koskelin, who spoke to the Ontonagon Rotary Club about the project, is a retired Navy veteran, and offered to give four acres of her land in Rockland to build a museum. Kanniainen is the president of the museum committee, and started the fund raising for the building with a treadmill walk across the nation. Recently the group raised $1,000 with a St. Patrick's Day walk/run from Rockland to Ontonagon.

Koskelin, who worked in Washington for several years while in the Navy, told the Rotary that the fund now totals about $10,000. She said she has an ambitious goal to raise the $450,000 needed for the museum in the next three years. The treasurer said she plans to send letters to VFW and American Legion Clubs in Michigan to request funds and then move on to such organizations throughout the United States. The group has an engineer who will be drawing plans for the museum building itself.

The large Vietnam Memorial in Washington draws thousands of people each year, but Koskelin noted that many people with family members, who died in Vietnam, can never visit the wall. "They can come to Rockland and pay tribute to those who died in that foreign land. She noted that even today, names are being added to the wall. Veterans who died as a result of the wounds they received in the conflict are added to the major wall and the moving walls as well.

Several Rotarians commented that they had visited either the wall in Washington or the moving walls. "It is like visiting a church, no one speaks as they move from name to name and realize the enormity of the numbers killed in Vietnam," a Rotarian added.

With a moving wall museum in Rockland, nine of those soldiers come home to their roots.

Information and donations can be sent to the Moving Wall Foundation, PO Box 297, Rockland, Mi 49960.