Bag of medals left at traveling Vietnam Memorial Wall in Bellingham

Bag of medals left at traveling Vietnam Memorial Wall in Bellingham
ISABELLE DILLS - THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

BELLINGHAM — No one would have guessed the contents of a brown plastic bag with a camouflage design laid against the Veterans Traveling Tribute, a replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

The bag sat untouched, as are some other items left at the memorial, for almost two days before Shelley Prentice, the coordinator of the memorial’s visit, finally opened it. When she did, she couldn’t believe her eyes.

The bag contained five medals, including an Army Distinguished Service Cross — the nation’s second-highest military honor — and a Purple Heart, in their original blue tin cases.


“That’s just amazing,” Prentice said. “These are the highest medals you can get, short of the … Medal of Honor.”

Medals are occasionally left beside the traveling wall, a smaller replica of the memorial in Washington, D.C. The tradition of leaving items is believed to have begun in 1982 at The Wall in D.C. when someone put a Purple Heart in the concrete being poured during the memorial's construction, according to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Web site.
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