• Hamburger Hill, Cocoa Beach and Khe Sanh were a part of Taylor’s service

John Taylor, Vietnam Veteran,  and Star Valley resident was looking over the Wall That Heals Friday night and reflecting on his service and everyone who had served in the war.

The thought of that service and telling the stories that went with it developed into a Wyoming stop for the wall this summer as the replica of the Vietnam War Memorial toured  the nation.

“One night, I just got thinking about, the Wall, and maybe it could help some of us, our, schoolchildren, and grown ups  as well to understand,”  Taylor explained.

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Not knowing of the traveling Wall That Heals,” Taylor reached out to local veterans with his thoughts about helping people remember and understand.

As the veterans learned of the traveling memorial, they discussed the possibilities of a Star Valley stop.

As they brought the project together for a local visit, “a lot of people stood up and helped,” Taylor pointed out. .

He continued, “It has all come together. We started this thing last August, I think it was. So we’ve been working on it nearly a year,” he remembered as he looked over the crowd at the at Friday evening ceremony for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, (PTSD.)

Taylor went to Vietnam, knowing hard work as a youth and applied to service for his country.

“I grew up in Pennsylvania on a dairy farm, he recalled. “My dad died when I was eight. My brother, and I, we went ahead and milked cows, and did farm work and, I ended up going in the service. “

That service took him to familiar names associated with the Vietnam war. “I’ve been at the battle of Hamburger Hill, with Cocoa Beach and Khe Sanh,” he said. “ I know all those places in the north, it was part of our service.”

Through that service he lost friends and associates.

“We lost nine,” he said of those he served closely with. “I know them, perfectly.  Their names are on the wall. One of them was standing next to me when he was killed. And so, I know.”

He continued, “It’s something you live with your whole life. They’re brothers. They’re closer than family; brothers.”

Asked about honoring them at the Star Valley this week with the Wall That Heals, Taylor concluded, “I hope I have honored them, forever.”