Moving Wall Lives Up to Its Name : Tribute: A traveling replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington arrives in Orange County for the first time and revives memories of heroism and horror.

ORANGE —  It had been 20 years, almost to the day, since Teddi Alves’ husband was killed in a plane crash on a combat mission in Vietnam. And here she was Sunday afternoon, facing his name, engraved in neat white letters on a long black wall.

Dressed in a black dress and carrying a red rose for her husband, Air Force navigator Moses L. Alves, 34, she sobbed quietly as she stood before his name on the Moving Wall, a traveling replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington that arrived Sunday in Orange County for the first time.

Regaining her composure, Alves said she planned to go home Sunday night and replay one of the 18 cassettes that her husband had sent home during his tour of duty.

“I’m going to play our tape and have a martini,” said Alves, a Huntington Beach resident who never remarried.

The scene was one of many Sunday, as more than 300 people--Vietnam veterans and surviving relatives of soldiers killed in the war--turned out under a gray sky to see the Moving Wall at Chapman College.

The wall will be open for viewing 24 hours a day through noon Friday. On Tuesday at 6:30 p.m., a ceremony will be held on the Orange campus, with speeches by local dignitaries and a playing of taps by a color guard from the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing at El Toro. Up to 1,000 people a day are expected to visit the wall.

Like the original wall but about half its size, the Moving Wall contains all 58,156 names of those who were killed, listed as missing in action or made prisoners of war during the 16-year Vietnam War, which ended in 1975.

The wall, 252 feet long and six feet high, is composed of 74 separate aluminum frames, which are disassembled for each move. The wall, built by Vietnam veterans with donations, has toured the United States for five years. It will next be set up Nov. 3 through 9 at the Marine Corps training base at Camp Pendleton.

For many Sunday, the traveling wall offered them their first opportunity to see the engraved names of comrades who died in Vietnam. For some, it was a devastating experience.

A Navy veteran who would identify himself only as Dave T. broke into tears and had to kneel when he found the name of a buddy who had saved his life.

“He pulled me out of a gunboat before it blew up,” Dave T., 41, said as his fingers caressed the name of Navy serviceman James L. Craig Jr., who died in the explosion.

Like some other veterans, Dave T.’s wife stood a respectful distance away as her husband grieved in solitude. Other veterans were accompanied by veteran friends, many wearing their old fatigues.

“Some made it. Some didn’t. It was just the luck of the draw,” said Gary Wennerberg, 40, a Mission Viejo delivery truck driver who fought in Vietnam as a Marine infantryman.

Wennerberg had found a dozen names of buddies killed in combat and was searching for still more.

“It’s kind of hard to look” at the wall, he said, as his eyes carefully scanned vast columns of white print containing all the names. “But it’s a way of honoring these people.”

Veterans and surviving relatives found other ways to pay tribute. Several left notes, such as this one addressed to a deceased Sgt. Marvin L. Noe from a Sgt. Steve Wallace: “We had some good times together. I’ll always miss you, buddy.”

Others left flowers, singly and in bouquets.

The biggest bouquet of all, about 2 1/2 feet high and containing dozens of brightly colored flowers, was laid before the memorial by three veterans, all wearing their military fatigues. After reciting individual prayers, the three soldiers saluted and walked away before anyone could see their tears.

“It’s like going to a relative’s grave when you had never been able to go to the funeral,” said Preston Hatch, 42, of Garden Grove, who along with veterans Bob Kakuk, 43, and Mike Kagikas, 42, both of Huntington Beach, laid the huge bouquet.

Hatch said that in Vietnam, wounded and dead were carried off the battlefield so fast that it was difficult to keep up with what had happened to whom. Other soldiers said they were injured and “medi-vacced” off the battlefield, and are only just now finding out what happened to their comrades.

Hatch said he discovered Sunday the name of a high school friend from Lakewood who had been killed in the war.

Hatch, Kagikas and Kakuk, members of the Vietnam Vets Reunited support group in Huntington Beach, had joined other volunteers that morning in erecting the Moving Wall, which had been trucked to the Chapman campus in packing crates.

Kakuk said the work was fairly routine until the wall neared completion on a grassy field near the college stadium.

“I looked down it (then), and my whole body started trembling,” said Kakuk, who was an Army machine-gunner in 1969-70.

Hatch, who served in the Marines in 1967-68, said he had considerable anxiety on the drive to Chapman College.

“If you were ‘in-country,’ your legs get shaky, just driving out here, knowing what you will be seeing,” Hatch said. “It’s hard to describe.”

Viewing was also an overwhelming experience for relatives.

Harvest Gulevich of Fountain Valley broke into racking sobs and had to flee the Moving Wall after seeing the name of her father, Marine helicopter pilot Lee Blankenship.

“I think about my father every single day,” said Gulevich, 40, who wore her father’s flight jacket. “It’s been 20 years, but it doesn’t go away.”

Volunteer counselors are on hand this week near the wall to help. Volunteers in a headquarters under a large green tent help visitors to find names and discuss their feelings. For most veterans, volunteer host Joe Cordero said, the visit to the Moving Wall was therapeutic.

“Hopefully,” said Cordero, himself a Vietnam veteran, “we’ll never have to build a memorial like this again.”