Pensacola’s Veterans Memorial Park Foundation will be adding 140 names to "Wall South” in the next few weeks. Each year the park adds new names to the wall as a result of new information gathered by faithful volunteers. The greater Gulf Coast community is invited to attend and witness the addition of new names in commemoration of those who gave all to serve all. 

"We are delighted to be able to update the Wall South Memorial to include all known casualties of the Vietnam conflict,” said Capt Butch Hansen, USN ret. and Veterans Memorial Park Foundation President. "This provides us an opportunity to call attention to our mission ‘to honor the fallen’ and to recognize those that have borne the fight and sacrificed all on our behalf. We are very fortunate to live in a community that had the foresight and energy to invest in and honor this sacred obligation. We especially thank the Bear Family Foundation for their generous donation and the many volunteers from the Naval Air Station and the Studer Group that poured through databases and recorded and reconciled the names that enabled us to update this remarkable memorial.”

Names have been added to the Vietnam War memorial in Wahington D.C. each year as the result of the following efforts: 

• Redefining the combat area and the period of the conflict
• Identifying more missions related to the conflict where lives were lost
• Discovering new records of wartime death
• Identifying the names of men who died from physical injuries after combat as a result of the war. 

The criteria for geographic boundaries, beginning dates, and ending dates are determined by the US Department of Defense. The process for adding names to the Wall South is intricate and sophisticated, consisting of a multi-step operation that includes sandblasting, painting, and carving.