‘It just took a little bit of time’

In May of 2023, Nicolet College hosted one of the 3/4 scale, traveling versions of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. 

Casey Lehmann, an eight year veteran of service in the Wisconsin Army National Guard (WIARNG) that included a 2003-04 deployment to Iraq with the WIARNG’s 724th Engineer Battalion , is the college’s finance manager and coordinated the 2023 visit that resulted in the college receiving one of its panels. 

“We’ve had it for a couple of years,” she said. “We just had to take the time to find the right place to put it and then build a stand to mount it to. So, it just took a little bit of time.”

The panel from a traveling version of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial that is now on permanent display near the patio of Nicolet College’s Lakeside Center.
(Photo by Brian Jopek/Lakeland Times)

The place where it was decided to permanently display the replica of the Wall’s panel W67 is where there had been a gazebo at the northeast corner of Nicolet’s Lakeside Center patio where a brief dedication ceremony took place on April 30 that included a 21-gun salute by the Northwoods Honor Guard.

The Guard’s Skip Dulin of Rhinelander, who served during the Vietnam War in 1972 and 1973 as a door gunner on scout helicopters assigned to D Troop, 17th U.S. Cavalry, shared some facts about the Wall with those assembled for the ceremony. 

“Of the 58,318 names on the Wall, there are 31 sets of brothers, three sets of fathers and sons and eight women,” he said. “There are still 1,566 listed as missing in action, 40 of which are from the state of Wisconsin.”

Lehmann had opened the ceremony, telling the audience the 2023 display of the Wall at Nicolet College “brought our campus and community together in remembrance, reflection and gratitude for those who served and sacrificed.”

“This panel is also a lasting symbol of the honor it was to bring the ‘Wall that Heals’ to our community,” she said. “It provided an opportunity for those who were unable or who did not wish to travel to Washington, D.C., to experience the memorial closer to home.”

Lehmann said she “would never forget” how, when the Wall that Heals was at the college in 2023, she’d assisted a 90 year-old Gold Star mother from Hiles in Forest County “as she searched for the name of her son who she lost all those years ago.”

“In that moment, the Wall became more than a memorial,” Lehmann said. “It became a place of remembrance, healing and peace.”

She said among the names on the panel are two Wisconsinites, U.S. Marine Dennis Duane Wehrs of La Crosse, who was 20 years old when he was killed in action in Quang Tri province and the U.S. Army’s Robert E. Zeske of Milwaukee, who was 23 when he was killed in action in Vietnam’s Kotum province.

Both men died on May 25, 1968, two of 40 with their names on the panel killed in Vietnam on that day. 

“May this inspire all who pass by to pause, reflect and honor those who’s names are etched here and the countless others they represent,” Lehmann said during the April 30 dedication ceremony.

Brian Jopek may be reached via email at [email protected].