Platt’s Funeral Home applied for and was accepted as a host for The Moving Wall, which is a replica of the Vietnam Wall that travels all over the country between April and November annually. The Moving Wall will be hosted at the Platt’s Belair Road location, 337 N. Belair Road, Evans, Ga., 30809, on Thursday, October 15, through Saturday, October 17, of this year.

The Patriot Guard will escort The Moving Wall to Platt’s on Thursday at 8:00 a.m. before TMW is constructed by volunteers in the Evans and surrounding areas. An opening ceremony will take place on October 15 at 6:00 p.m. in front of TMW, which will be assembled on the front lawn of the funeral home. Speakers, including Retired Colonel John Dewey along with other Vietnam Veterans and various musical talents will be heard as onlookers and participants honor those who paid the ultimate price for freedom.  

The other ceremony to take place during the three-day hosting duration of TMW will be a closing ceremony on Saturday, October 17, at 5:00 p.m. The Guest Speaker for the closing ceremony will be Retired Major General Perry Smith, who is son-in-law to the late Jimmie Dyess and is a Vietnam Veteran himself. Following the closing, The Wall will remain open to the public until 8:00 p.m. and be deconstructed the following morning.

The Moving Wall is a replica half the size of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC and has been touring the country for over thirty years. A Vietnam veteran was able to visit the Memorial in DC and vowed to share it with others who could not make the trip to Washington. The vet, John Devitt, along with many other volunteers built the Vietnam Wall replica, which debuted in Texas in 1984, and now have two structures traveling the United States every year.

The opportunity to host such an emblem of pride does not come along every day, and Platt’s Funeral Home is proud to have been chosen for this special honor. In the words of a past TMW host, “Freedom is not free. It comes at a price, and the price of that freedom is written on the Wall.”