Bringing the Healing Home — Part 2: Two Veterans Preview The Wall That Heals
SPINDALE, N.C. (WNCW) - Two Vietnam-era veterans who live in Rutherford County say The Wall That Heals, a traveling replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, will matter most to people who never made the trip to Washington, D.C.
The three-quarter-scale replica arrives Tuesday, Nov. 10, with a motorcycle escort. It will be on display Nov. 12-15 on the Isothermal Community College soccer fields at 360 Piney Ridge Road in Spindale. Admission is free, and the exhibit is open 24 hours a day. A welcome home ceremony is set for 4 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 12. The wall bears the names of 58,281 service members who died in the Vietnam War or remain unaccounted for.
THE MAN WHO BROUGHT THEM HOME
Bruce Lancaster joined the Army in October 1966 and served two years. After boot camp at Fort Bragg, he trained at Fort Lee, Virginia, in what was then called Graves Registration, now known as mortuary affairs.
Lancaster said his unit identified service members killed in action and collected their personal effects so they could be sent to their families. Those who lived west of the Mississippi River went to Travis Air Force Base in California, he said, and those east of it went to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Each came home with a two-soldier military escort.
"I was twenty-one years old when I went in," Lancaster said. "When you're young, you can stand anything. I wouldn't want to do it today, but it was just a job that you had to get used to."
The work, he said, taught him how fragile life is. "There's only a very thin line between here today and gone tomorrow."
Asked about the wall's 58,281 names, Lancaster said, "We lost a lot of young men." Many of them, he said, were draftees who "had no choice but to go."
He said his first visit to the memorial in Washington was to find a man from Spindale, Earl Marshall Hayes. A volunteer asked whether he knew him. "I had such a knot in my throat, I couldn't speak a word," Lancaster said. He traced the name onto a piece of paper.
Lancaster also knew Army Pfc. Douglas Grant Bailey, one of 10 Rutherford County service members who died in Vietnam and will be honored as Hometown Heroes. Bailey is buried near the college. "Doug Bailey was my neighbor, and I went to church with him," Lancaster said. He has offered to walk visitors across the road to the grave.
THE SEABEE AND THE POET
Doug Jackson served in the Navy's construction force, known as the Seabees. The name comes from the initials C.B., for construction battalion. The unit's official motto is "We Build, We Fight," but Jackson said the real one is "Can Do."
"Seabees got the jobs that wasn't nobody else going to do," Jackson said. "Get out there, get this done, and get on back."
Jackson said the hardest part of the service was the conditions: "Always sweating, always filthy." Asked what he remembers most about the people he served beside, he said, "It was brothers."
He has lost friends since coming home, including a close friend named Dale, who died of complications from Agent Orange exposure. Jackson writes poetry, including a poem about the brothers who did not come home, called "Strangers Once, Brothers Forever." He said the words come to him in the middle of the night.
Both men have a message for those thinking about visiting. Lancaster said veterans unsure about going should "come and see it," and that afterward, "they'll be glad they did." Jackson suggested coming at night. "Probably everybody that night is going to be a Vietnam veteran," he said. "We can talk. We're brothers."
Jackson also hopes younger visitors will talk with the veterans on site. "We're old, but we're smart," he said. "We know a whole lot, and we're willing to share it."
Jackson, who said he is good with a sledgehammer, offered to help drive stakes when the wall goes up. Setting up the memorial takes about 140 panels and more than 300 volunteers.
"I got a deep, deep love for this country," Jackson said. "I'm still on duty. We all are."
THE WEEK AHEAD
The wall arrives Tuesday, Nov. 10, by motorcycle escort. It will be open to the public from Thursday, Nov. 12, through Sunday, Nov. 15, and the full schedule of events is at thewallthathealsspindalenc2026.org. School and group tours can be reserved by text at 828-351-4955.
WHAT'S NEXT
In the final part of Bringing Healing Home, WNCW will be at the wall in Spindale, speaking with veterans, loved ones and friends affected by the Vietnam War and recapping the visit.
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TAGS: The Wall That Heals, Vietnam War, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Spindale, Rutherford County, veterans, Seabees, mortuary affairs, Isothermal Community College, Bringing Healing Home, WNCW
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