Rich Kaminsky of Connecticut looks at Panel 44 at the LBJ Presidential Library and Museum in Austin, Texas, on Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024. The panel was made for the 1982 installation of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington but had to be remade because of a defect on the upper right corner. This month, the extra panel was installed at the library. (Rose L. Thayer/Stars and Stripes)
AUSTIN, Texas — A black granite panel made for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is now one of the first artifacts visitors see at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum.
The panel stands more than 6 feet tall and bears the names of 335 service members who died in just eight days of the war.
Placed on permanent display earlier this month at the museum in Austin, Panel 44 is the only one from the 1982-installation of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial available to view outside of the National Mall in Washington.
“The Vietnam War is inescapably a huge part of President Johnson’s legacy, and it’s appropriate for this institution to pay tribute to all veterans, but in particular the Americans who died in that war,” said Mark Lawrence, former director of the museum who oversaw the donation of the panel last year from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. “The panel raises to a new level what we’re doing for our visitors in terms of getting them to recognize the realities of the Vietnam War, how important that was to the Johnson presidency.”
The panel, which is 900 pounds, holds the names of airmen, soldiers, Marines and sailors who died from March 9-16, 1968, including Medal of Honor recipient Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Richard Loy Etchberger, three recipients of the Distinguished Service Cross, three of the Navy Cross and nine of the Silver Star.
They range in age from 19 to 47 years old and came to the military from 44 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.
However, after the names were sandblasted onto the granite at a glass shop in Memphis, Tenn., officials noticed a crack in the upper right corner and determined it had to be remade out of concern it wouldn’t hold up outside in the elements, said Jim Knotts, president and CEO of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, the nonprofit organization that built and maintains the memorial wall in Washington.
It sat in a scrap pile for years before popping up on eBay where it came to the attention of the memorial fund, Knotts said. The fund contacted the seller and took ownership of the panel.
Panel 44 was made for the 1982 installation of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington but had to be remade because of a defect on the upper right corner. This month the extra panel was installed at the LBJ Presidential Library and Museum in Austin, Texas. (Rose L. Thayer/Stars and Stripes)
Panel 44 was relocated to the fund’s office until 2022 when it was showcased as part of a nationwide tour to honor the wall’s 40th anniversary. After that, Knotts said they began coordinating with the LBJ Library as a possible permanent home for the panel.
“We call the Vietnam Veterans Memorial the wall that heals because for so many of our Vietnam veterans it is part of their healing journey. Normally, we’re restricted to people coming to D.C. to have that kind of experience,” he said. “[Displaying it at the LBJ Library] is one more opportunity to bring these names home to a local community and have visitors come and be a part of that healing experience.”
Panel 44 represents a stretch of the Vietnam War following the Tet Offensive, in which the North Vietnamese launched coordinated attacks against several targets in South Vietnam. The U.S. and South Vietnamese forces sustained heavy losses, and the attack weakened the U.S. public’s support of the war. During the eight days of the war memorialized on Panel 44, the U.S. lost an average of 43 troops a day.
Rich Kaminsky visited the LBJ Library on Tuesday from Connecticut, and he said it was “moving to have an actual panel” available for viewing.
A history buff, Kaminsky said the war really weighed on Johnson and having those names on display exemplifies it.
In October, the library will open an exhibit on the Vietnam War intended to complement the new artifact on display. It begins with newscaster Walter Cronkite’s famous commentary Feb. 27, 1968, voicing skepticism about the war’s progress, said Lara Hall, curator of the LBJ Library. It ends with Johnson’s March 31, 1968, announcement that he would not seek reelection.
New materials were gathered from outside the library for the display, such as recordings from the Library of Congress to allow visitors to hear firsthand accounts of the war.
“We talk about the administration, but most of the exhibit focuses on what it was like on the ground for people in Vietnam,” Hall said. “I thought it was important to acknowledge that so much of what the war was wasn’t happening inside of the White House. That perspective is so different than how it was talked about in the administration and putting those two things together seemed important.”
The LBJ Presidential Library and Museum in Austin, Texas, is now home to the only piece of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial outside of Washington. The panel was made for the 1982 installation of the memorial but had to be remade because of a defect on the upper right corner. (Rose L. Thayer/Stars and Stripes)
Some of the significant events of the war that correspond to Panel 44 and the exhibit include the Marine Corps battle at Khe Sanh, a base where supplies were airlifted to troops from along the Laotian border, and an attack on Lima Site 85 in Laos.
At Lima Site 85, the Air Force and CIA operated a small radar station about 12 miles from North Vietnam, according to the Defense Department. Enemy forces attacked on March 10, 1968, resulting in the deaths of 12 of the 19 men there.
Etchberger single-handedly fended off the enemy with an M-16 rifle while calling for air rescue and directing airstrikes that were nearly on top of him, leading to the Medal of Honor, according to the Defense Department. He died in the fight but can be credited for saving the lives of three of the seven survivors of that night.
Hall began narrowing down the exhibit and its contents once the library realized the panel would work there, she said. Initially, they feared the 900-pound panel would fall through the floor. An engineering firm designed a special base to keep the panel upright and confirmed it would remain in place on the library’s third floor.
The memorial fund also operates a smaller replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington that it has toured throughout the country since 1996. It has been displayed in more than 700 communities and its schedule is available online at www.vvmf.org.
For hours and information on the LBJ Library, go to www.lbjlibrary.org.
