Today, Sept. 11, "Smokie" Lewallen will work his day job as a plumber on new construction for Huber Plumbing.

Tonight, and through the weekend, he plans to be at Fort Caspar, keeping watch over an inanimate wall out of respect for the more than 58,000 names etched in it.

Lewallen was at Fort Caspar on Wednesday morning, kneeling on moist ground just in front of the wall, helping to install the spotlights that illuminate it.

At the apex of the wall, 1975 casualties are nestled up to those from 1959, joining the end and the beginning of the conflict in the center. From the center, the names are listed alphabetically by date of casualty, moving out the right-hand side first, then picking up again at the far end of the left-hand side and working to the center.

Standing at the center, one can look over the relative recent history of the wall and see the wooden replica buildings of Fort Caspar more than a century ago in the near distance and purple sage and the North Platte River further in the distance.

Smokie served in Vietnam from October 1969 to 1970 and has lived in Casper for 36 years, since shortly after getting out of the Army.

He was in both the 4th Infantry Division, 4th Battalion, 42nd Artillery; and the 2nd Battalion, 8th Mechanized Infantry as a radio telegraph operator. Smokie served with three of the names on the wall, all in the 42nd Artillery.

"And I knew a bunch more, but I served with three," he said.

Casper last hosted the replica wall nine years ago, and Smokie was there. Four years ago, he visited the wall in Washington and found the names of the three then.

"I like working on it," he said. "I'll be here every minute I'm not working."

He and the rest of the Vietnam Veterans Motorcycle Club, who only need to have served from 1959 until the end of the Vietnam War but not necessarily in Vietnam, will provide 24-hour security at the site.

Cary Dees from Orlando, Fla., drives the big rig that hauls the wall in a 53-foot trailer from community to community.

He and Barbara Smith are co-drivers on the road and site managers in the communities, organizing volunteers who set up, serve as hosts and tear down the wall.

"We average 20 to 25 sites a year; this year we have 21," he said. "We start in March and end in December, and it's full-time work for us."

Dees says he is "privileged" to carry the load he does, and he said they regularly encounter horn honks, high signs and thumbs up while they travel.

In four seasons, they have never encountered a demonstration.

"The volunteers are usually veterans groups, and they are very serious about this," he said. "We can get it here, but it's a mutual thing. Once we get to your community, it becomes your event. It takes a community to make it happen, and we try to be as flexible as we can. We try to present it with as much dignity and respect as if you saw it in Washington."

Mission accomplished.

Reach community news editor Sally Ann Shurmur at (307) 266-0520 or sallyann.shurmur@trib.com.

If you go

When: Through late afternoon Sunday

Where: Grounds of Fort Caspar, intersection of Wyoming Boulevard and W. 13th St.

Opening Ceremony: 6:30 p.m. today, featured speaker Vietnam War veteran Lee Alley of Wheatland.

Cost: Free but donations will be accepted to defray setup costs gratefully accepted; Natrona County United Veterans Council, P.O. Box 735, Evansville, 82636.

When: Through late afternoon Sunday

Where: Grounds of Fort Caspar, intersection of Wyoming Boulevard and W. 13th St.

Opening Ceremony: 6:30 p.m. today, featured speaker Vietnam War veteran Lee Alley of Wheatland.

Cost: Free but donations will be accepted to defray setup costs gratefully accepted; Natrona County United Veterans Council, P.O. Box 735, Evansville, 82636.]]->