By Jodi Hausen,Staff Writer

WILTON – The Vietnam Moving Wall’s name not only describes its mobility but its effect on people who visit it.

Hundreds attended the wall’s opening ceremonies Tuesday night, including Gov. John Baldacci and representatives for both of Maine’s U.S. senators and U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud. The event included a color guard, American Indian drumming, speeches and a ceremonial dove release.

The wall is a scaled-down version of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.

The ceremony honored all veterans of all wars, but two of Wilton’s native sons, whose names appear on the Vietnam wall, were highlighted: Leslie Dalrymple and Bard Davenport. Family members of both were present, as were friends, who reminisced about the two.

Before the ceremony, Lynn McGrath of Portland said she was 14 when her older brother, Leslie Dalrymple, was killed.

“I had no concept of what it meant to have two military men walk up your driveway,” she said. It was four days before Thanksgiving. “Then it was just a blur,” she said.

“It means a lot (to have the wall in Wilton) because it’s a community that most of us have memories from,” she said. Her brother is buried in the cemetery there, overlooking Wilson Lake.

Brian West spoke to the large crowd about Davenport. West attended Wilton Academy with Davenport and lived with him while attending Wentworth Institute before they were drafted. The two visited another schoolmate suffering from paralysis in the hospital after he returned from the war.

“It was a sobering indication of what Vietnam had to offer,” he said.

As an infantryman – or “grunt,” as he called himself – he said he has deep admiration for the helicopter pilots who rescued soldiers who got into “deep, deep doo-doo,” routinely putting themselves in harm’s way. Davenport was one of those pilots.

“We, the people of Wilton, can be very proud of our native son,” Jeff Adams, another friend of Davenport’s, said. “I will never forget him.”

Dalrymple’s brother Brian read a letter from a “hero in Tennessee” who recently wrote to his sister. The soldier, who had trained in the infantry with Dalrymple, told of not being able to go home to see his newborn daughter. So Dalrymple and others spent more than “$40 for a $5 toy,” playing an arcade game at a fair to win a stuffed Snoopy for him to give to her. He still has the Peanuts character and will relinquish it only to his daughter’s son.

Sitting at the fringe of the overflowing event tent, World War II veterans Charles Stenger of Jay and Laurent Brochu of Bowdoin were solemn.

“It’s sad, in a way, that all these people sacrificed their lives,” said Stenger about the wall.

Brochu, a prisoner of war for a year, agreed.

“It is heartbreaking to see so many names on the wall that died for our country,” he said. The wall will remain on display in Kineowatha Park through Aug. 8.