As a Vietnam veteran and on behalf of the more than 10,000 veterans in Rowan County, we are asking all citizens to stand up and speak in full support of our Rowan County Vietnam veterans memorial wall.

This magnificent monument was first proposed over eight years ago as a memorial to honor and remember those Rowan County veterans who made the ultimate sacrifice in the Vietnam War. Rowan County is one of the few counties in the state that has not erected a Vietnam memorial wall.

Although our wall was completed and scheduled for dedication in 2017 for the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War, for various reasons and due to extenuating circumstances the wall project was delayed and the dedication was canceled.

We now hope to have the wall erected by Memorial Day in May or not later than Veterans Day in November. We respectfully ask all citizens to please support this project and encourage our local government officials to do the same.

It may be ironic as we debate the wall proposed for the southern border to remember the Korean and Vietnam wars with a wall. Like the demilitarized zone in Korea, if we had erected a similar border wall in Vietnam at the start of the war, it may have saved our country billions of dollars in military spending as well as more than 58,000 lives of American servicemen and women for whom the Rowan wall will be dedicated.

— Ronnie Smith

Salisbury