My name is Paul Reyes and I am the Jr. Past Commander of Post 637 in Citrus Heights, CA. I am a retired Marine Corps Gunnery Sgt and a two tour veteran of a tiny little skirmish called Vietnam.
In mid 2022 I was watching a program on the History Channel about the March on Washington back in 1962. This was where the late great Dr. Martin Luther King recited his “I Have a Dream” speech. As he finished his speech the program ended and I felt a bit sad as the great man never got to see his dream come to fruition.
As I channel surfed I came across the military channel that was showing a documentary on the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, DC. About 5 minutes into the program I, all of a sudden, had a dream. The dream was to bring, “The Wall That Heals”, the traveling Wall to Citrus Heights! With the help of a GREAT committee and the City of Citrus Heights The Wall was here the week of March 29th, 2023. The week of Vietnam War Veterans Day! We had some 10,000 people come to see The Wall that week!
During the week The Wall was here I got the idea of having a copy of The Wall built here in Citrus Heights, my adopted home town! I went straight to a dear friend and fellow Vietnam Vet and asked if he would help me? His answer was, “It’s gonna take a lot of work and money but I’ll be right there with you”!
We now have a full-time committee, we have organized a non-profit, we have partnered with Calvary Catholic Cemetery where the structure will be built and we already have received funds from both the local ROTARY, the City of Citrus Heights and several private donations on our web site, CHVMP.ORG.
We look to start building in the Spring of 2025 with hopes of completion by late 2025 or early 2026.
What we need is the support of the Department of California and all of it’s members with donations of any size as all will go towards creating the ONLY structure of its kind on the West Coast and will be a destination point for ALL Veterans near and far!
I know that we have numerous Vietnam Veterans within our ranks and I am hoping that each and every one of you decides to help us out. This project is not for me, not for my Post, but rather for the 58,281 whose names are on that Wall as they sacrificed it all!
I have included a copy of our flier (see below) that includes our web site address, EI# for tax purposes, it also includes our mailing address should you prefer to send a check rather than donate online as the service we use does charge us a percentage to process any donations made through the web site.
I thank you in advance for any help you can give us and I look forward to experiencing the Legion’s help in putting together this very important project!
Best,
Paul Reyes
Jr. Past Commander
American Legion Post 637
Citrus Heights, CA
GySgt
United States Marine Corps (ret)
Vietnam – 69/71
Author: caLegion Contributor
The above article may contain opinions which are the author's own and may not necessarily reflect an official stance taken by The American Legion Department of California. We do our best to vet any information posted to the website. Please email webteam@calegion.org with any changes and/or corrections to anything published here.