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The Virtual Wall provides a web site for memorials to those 58,249 women and men who are named on "The Wall", the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, USA; those military persons who gave the "ultimate sacrifice" for their country. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington was built from private donations collected by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. The Wall was dedicated in 1982, and completed in 1984 with the addition of the "Three Servicemen Statue." Since its completion, The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington has belonged to the people of the United States of America and has been maintained by the U. S. National Park Service. This web site is not affiliated with the US NPS.
On The Virtual Wall, visitors may leave tributes, letters, poems, photos, and other memorials to someone named on The Wall for other visitors to view. The goal is to provide an environment like The Wall itself, with the dignity and respect those named on The Wall have earned. There are no flashy or noisy distractions, no commercials, and no fee to publish a memorial.
The Virtual Wall is not a complete listing of all Vietnam casualties; there are several sites which already provide that service, including www.no-quarter.org. Each name on our index pages leads to a memorial for that person, a memorial written by someone who had a personal connection to the man or woman being remembered
History of The Virtual Wall
The Virtual Wall was first open to the public on March 23, 1997 at a temporary site at www.iinc.com/VirtualWall. On that date the phrase "The Virtual Wall" was established as the unique trademark for this web site with personal memorials to Vietnam War casualties. Shortly after opening, The Virtual Wall was indexed on all major search engines, had reciprocal links with many other Vietnam veteran sites, and was added to the Vietnam Veterans Web ring. Anyone searching for the words "virtual, wall, vietnam, veterans, memorial" or combinations and subsets of those words would have easily found the site. On April 28, 1997 the domain name www.VirtualWall.org was officially registered to this site as a world-wide unique name with Network Solutions. Trademarks may be checked on the web site of U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
The Virtual Wall was opened by Jim Schueckler, a Vietnam (War) veteran who founded The Virtual Wall Association. Several persons who served in Vietnam, both civilian and military, and several persons with friends or relatives killed in Vietnam have served on its advisory board. The concept of internet memorials to Vietnam War casualties was first used on the web site of the Friends of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, (an organization that no longer exists) and on the Vietnam Veterans Home Page. The leaders of those web sites served on the board and helped to create this web site dedicated solely to such memorials.
When the concept of The Virtual Wall was first developed, several names were considered. Before opening The Virtual Wall in 1997, we made an exhausive search to ensure we would not accidentally copy a name used by someone else for a similar purpose. We found the name "The Virtual Wall" had already been used for a related purpose: on Veterans Day, 1995 and 1996, Tim Duffie and Karen Asher had a web site named "The Virtual Wall" on which were displayed, a few seconds apart, each of the names of the women and men named on The Wall. Tim and Karen granted to us their permission to use the name "The Virtual Wall" for this web site. In October, 2000, we discovered that Bill McBride had first proposed to friends a project similar to ours, with the name "Virtual Wall", although that project was never implemented and the plans not made public.
In September, 1999 another Vietnam veteran, Kenneth Davis (CDR, U.S. Navy, retired: A6 "Intruder" bomber/navigator) joined The Virtual Wall volunteer team and has since made thousands of beautiful memorial pages and major improvements to www.VirtualWall.org. In December, 2001 Channing Prothro, a former Marine in the Combined Action Platoon program, joined as the third volunteer on The Virtual Wall. In the year 2000, Channing was the driver and site facilitator for one of the structures of The Moving Wall (tm) and is the webmaster of The Moving Wall's web site. These three volunteers work on The Virtual Wall from their homes in their spare time. Between them, they have about 70 friends named on The Wall.
On November 11, 2000 The Virtual Wall began the Faces of Freedom project to collect photographs of all those named on The Wall in Washington and use their photographs as a visual index that would lead to the detailed personal memorials of each person. Small photographs from Faces of Freedom are selected by a random process for display on the front page of The Virtual Wall.
On April 5, 2001 Ken Davis added the Height of Valor index to pay special tribute to those named on The Virtual Wall who had earned our nation's highest military honors.
On May 1, 2001 Ken added the Current MIA Status index, updated frequently and formatted for ease of use. Since opening in 1997, The Virtual Wall had received many inquiries about the status of particular men listed as Missing In Action (MIA), which changed frequently as remains were found. The most recent information was available on a government web site but in a form that was not easily readable by novice computer users.
On January 28, 2002 The Virtual Wall became an "Official Partner" in the Veterans History Project of the Library of Congress. Every six months, The Virtual Wall will donate a CD-ROM snapshot of the whole website of The Virtual Wall. This places all of the photographs, poems, letters, citations, and indexes into the history archives of our country, ensuring their safe keeping and availability for future generations.
For more than four years Integration, Incorporated (IInc), of Batavia, New York, provided the server, disk space, and bandwidth for "The Virtual Wall" as a public service. IInc was paid absolutely nothing and they did not ask to have their corporate logo on pages meant to honor the fallen. Other costs to maintain The Virtual Wall came from the pockets of the three veteran volunteers for more than five years. To ensure longevity of the web site, on June 26, 2002, "www.VirtualWall.org, Ltd." became a not-for-profit corporation in New York State. The board is now working on the process to acquire IRS 501(c)3 not-for-profit status.
On July 5, 2003 Ken Davis was elected president of www.VirtualWall.org, Ltd. after nomination by Jim, who had been president for more than six years. Jim is now vice president and Channing Prothro was re-elected to the board of directors.
Nineteen months after The Virtual Wall opened to the public, a web site opened with the same name and a similar internet domain name. The two organizations and web sites are not related. Dates and ownership of domain names may be inspected at www.NetSol.com.
If you have a personal relationship with a person named on The Wall; a relative, a friend, or a man you wore a POW/MIA bracelet for, and wish to place a memorial on The Virtual Wall or have us link to your memorial, please use our request form..
We would be honored to so serve you.
Sincerely,
Ken Davis,
Jim Schueckler,
Channing Prothro,
Karen Spears Zacharias
| ALSO AVAILABLE
The 100 most recent names on The Virtual Wall with the newest additions at the top of the list. The alphabetical pages of names. Click the last name initial: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z The Faces of Freedom photo index of memorials. The sequential index of memorials. Memorials listed by state and city Memorials listed by panel number. Memorials listed by assigned unit. |
With all respect
Ken Davis, Commander, United States Navy (Ret)
Channing Prothro, former CAP Marine
Jim Schueckler, former CW2, US Army
Last updated 02/21/06