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PARKERSBURG -- At 3 p.m. Wednesday, the Traveling Vietnam Wall will leave Exit 132 on Interstate 77 in Jackson County, at Love's Service Center, on its way to Parkersburg.
Anyone who would like to escort the wall to Parkersburg is asked to be at the service center in Ripley at noon to line up.
"If you can't be there the Special Veterans Projects Committee hopes you can line Seventh Street or come to the City Park to welcome it," said Bernie Lyons, spokesman for the committee.
Arrival time in Parkersburg is approximately 5 p.m., Lyons said. The wall will be erected Thursday morning and open to the public at noon.
Dedication ceremonies begin at 6 p.m. Thursday with Larry "Mad Max" Maxwell as master of ceremonies, and Brigade Chaplain Major Joe Ward will do the invocation and the benediction. Ward is pastor of Tri City Baptist Church.
Hershel "Woody" Williams, Medal of Honor recipient, will be the keynote speaker. Williams is the only surviving Medal of Honor recipient of the Pacific Theater of World War II.
On Sept. 9 the Veterans Hospital in Huntington was renamed The Hershel "Woody" Williams VA Medical Center. Williams also recently welcomed and toured the ship named for him, The USNS Hershel Woody Williams T-ESB 4, as it arrived at its homeport at Norfolk,Va., for the first time.
On Friday and Saturday, the Traveling Vietnam Wall will open, with locators to assist, at 8 a.m. and close at 9 p.m.
On Sunday it will open at 8 a.m. and close at noon. At 1:30 p.m. Ward will conduct a Military Field Service (bring a folding chair) to honor all those on the Vietnam Wall and all Gold Star families. Sunday also is National Gold Star Family Day.
The Chamber Choir of Parkersburg High School will sing "Mansions of the Lord" at Sunday's field service.