Ghostly faces peered out of faded photographs hanging on the Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall at the Cave City Convention Center on Saturday as visitors quietly stared back or searched for loved ones.

Among them was Bill Kidd, who searched for his stepbrother Larry Buford, a 20-year-old from Franklin, Tenn., who never came back home. Kidd, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, said he was only in Vietnam for one day.

“I guess I was left here to tell a few stories about the ones that didn’t come back,” he said.

Veterans and family members of fallen soldiers gathered at the convention center for an opening ceremony for the traveling wall, which will remain there until Sept. 4 before moving on to North Carolina.

The wall is a three-fifths scale model of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. It stands six feet tall and is almost 300 feet long from end to end, according to the center’s website. It holds about 70 names from the Barren River Region.

During the ceremony, students from Barren County High School’s JROTC program participated in a POW/MIA table setting.

Retired Gen. Donald Storm spoke as the event’s keynote speaker and called for unity across the nation and a respect for the values service members give their lives for.

“The moving wall actually provides an opportunity to bring those that made the ultimate sacrifice in Vietnam to our communities,” said Storm, a Vietnam veteran.

Storm called for national unity and spoke out against the divisiveness of current times, which he compared to the political climate around the Vietnam War.

“Let’s assume a selflessness about us,” he said.

As a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, Kidd said he remembers that turmoil. Once, while in uniform at a bus station in Los Angeles, he remembers being spit on. Although Kidd ultimately believes the war was futile, he honors the veterans who served as heroes.

“It’s about serving your country and being a patriot,” he said.

For Kidd, the traveling wall stands as a testament to that.

“This wall means respect (and) validation of core beliefs in the country and what good people are capable of doing,” he said.

Vanessa Rey visited the wall to honor her uncle Jessie Lee Crump, who was only 20 years old when he was killed in the war.

“I just think people need to learn to respect the flag and this country and what it stands for,” she said, standing in front of his black and white photograph.

Sharon Tabor, director of the convention center and the Cave City Tourist and Convention Commission, said hosting the wall is an honor and that it gives locals a chance to see a monument they otherwise might not be able to. Tabor added that her own brother served in Vietnam in a non-combat capacity.

“They were doing their job,” she said, adding the veterans didn’t get the support and appreciation they deserved.

“It’s time that we honor them,” she said.