More than 12,000 people attended The Wall That Heals traveling exhibit — which offered an opportunity for visitors to learn, remember, and share — while it was on display Jan. 14-19 at the Great Lawn of the University of Hawai‘i–West O‘ahu in Kapolei, according to event organizers.
The exhibit, which includes a three-quarter scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., along with a mobile Education Center, also welcomed nearly 400 volunteers and over 20 community partners who contributed to the event.
The traveling exhibit honors the more than three million Americans who served in the U.S. Armed Forces in the Vietnam War, and it bears the names of the 58,281 men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in Vietnam, according to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF). The Wall That Heals is a program of the VVMF, the nonprofit organization that built the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., in 1982.
“I‘ve been to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., at least half a dozen times, but none of those visits prepared me for what I experienced during the time The Wall That Heals was at UH West O‘ahu,” said Ken Inouye, assistant to the Vice Chancellor for Administration at UH West O‘ahu.
Inouye was part of the UH West O‘ahu team that helped bring the traveling exhibit to campus.
“Seeing the effect it has had within our community has been humbling, and the way people just spontaneously shared their stories with me and others was clearly healing,” Inouye said. “Unlike the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in D.C., a place that is very quiet and people tend to keep to themselves, people who came to visit The Wall That Heals immediately sensed that everyone there was of the same community.”
Inouye said it was striking how many times people would start conversations with others they never met and how they would connect with each other.
“It even happened to me,” he shared. “A woman and her husband approached me to ask for directions and then started talking to me about the Wall. After about five minutes of us talking about family members who had served in the military, she realized that her uncle and my father had served together in World War II.”
Inouye is the son of the late U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, who served in the U.S. Army’s 442nd Regimental Combat Team, one of the most decorated military units in U.S. history.
“It often felt like people had sort of been waiting for something like this that would give them license to share with others, even those outside their immediate circle,” Inouye said.
Inouye said one of the personal highlights for him was seeing the sharing and talking stories among visitors that would spontaneously take place at the exhibit on any given day.
“It truly was a uniquely Hawai‘i experience,” he said.
Since its dedication on Veterans Day 1996, The Wall That Heals has been displayed in more than 800 communities throughout the nation, spreading the Memorial’s healing legacy to millions.
The display at UH West O‘ahu was the first stop of the VVMF’s 2026 The Wall That Heals national tour. Its next stop will be in March in Woodland Hills, Calif. The exhibit will visit a total of 31 communities in 2026.
To see more photos from the exhibit at UH West O‘ahu, visit The Wall That Heals album on Flickr.
This event is one of the “50 Acts of Pueo Pride” — events highlighted as part of the University of Hawai‘i–West O‘ahu’s 50th anniversary in 2026.
