Written by Bob Morabito
This weekend, The Wall That Heals—a traveling, 3/4-size replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.—is coming to Shaler Township, Pennsylvania. Whether you served, lost someone who did, or just lived through the Vietnam years, visiting this wall is a powerful, sobering experience. Below are reflections of VBC Member and Navy veteran Bob Morabito on the war that shaped his life and left a lasting mark on his hometown in Western Pennsylvania.
For me, the Wall always brings back a moment that defined my young adulthood: the night in February 1972 when my draft lottery number came up.
I graduated from Lincoln High School in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania, north of Pittsburgh, in 1971. All through high school, the Vietnam War was a daily presence. The Ellwood City Ledger carried front-page headlines on the war nearly every day. We were a town that paid attention to the service and sacrifice of our own, and we paid a price early.
Marine Lance Corporal Joseph Anthony Listorti—class of 1964—was the first Ellwood graduate killed in the war. He died in 1967, before I started high school. His death was just the beginning. By my sophomore year, after the Tet Offensive in 1968, national support for the war began to crumble. In May 1970, four students were killed at Kent State University during a protest against the war—an event that shook our state and my generation. Not long after, news reached us that another Ellwood City son, Specialist 4 Leslie H. Sabo Jr., had been killed in Cambodia. His heroism would go unrecognized until he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor decades later.
My family, like many others, was not untouched. My brother-in-law came home from Vietnam while I was still in eighth grade. He was changed—withdrawn, haunted. Looking back, I believe undiagnosed PTSD played a significant role in his suicide in the summer of 1971. That tragedy shaped how I saw the war, and the men who fought it.
In December 1969, the Selective Service System instituted a lottery system to make the draft “more equitable.” Capsules with birthdates were drawn and paired with numbers from 1 to 366. The lower your number, the greater your chance of being drafted. During my freshman year at Lafayette College, student deferments still provided some protection. But by the fall of 1971, even that was gone.
So, on a cold February evening in 1972, a group of us huddled around a dorm room radio to listen for our birthdates. When my number was announced—142—my heart sank. It was high enough that I wouldn’t be called immediately, but low enough to keep me on edge.
In the end, I wasn’t drafted. I received a 1-H classification—“not currently subject to processing.” The war was winding down, and Nixon was campaigning on promises of withdrawal. Still, that number had hovered over my life like the Sword of Damocles. When it was lifted, I felt both relief and unease.
Years later, after working as a youth counselor, I chose to serve on my own terms. In 1981, I joined the U.S. Navy and became a surface warfare officer. I served aboard cruisers and destroyers across the Atlantic, Pacific, Mediterranean, and Indian Oceans. I was a deck officer, chief engineer, and executive officer. I later taught Naval Science at the Naval Academy and strategy at the Naval War College. The legacy of Vietnam was never far from my mind—especially when teaching young midshipmen or examining the consequences of war policy in the classroom.
Like many, I was skeptical when Maya Lin‘s design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was first announced. A black granite wall, sunken into the ground, with no statues or symbols? It seemed too plain. But when my wife Cindy and I finally visited the wall in Washington two years after it opened, we understood. Its quiet dignity, the starkness of all those names—it was devastating and beautiful.
The only names I recognized were Joseph Listorti and Leslie Sabo. Joe I knew by reputation—he was a star athlete, part of the 1964 WPIAL Championship baseball team. I knew his father better, from tending bar at the Sons of Italy. Cindy remembered Sabo from Sunday school. Seeing their names—Panel 24E, Line 104 and Panel 10W, Line 15—made the war real in a way the headlines never could.
It still brings tears. I think of the names I never knew: Dennis Baker, Larry Boyer, David Brown, David Gamble, David Smith, John Straley, Robert Kuner Jr., William Bowers—all from Ellwood City. All etched in stone. All lost.
As a Naval War College instructor, I spent years teaching about Vietnam. Its lessons go beyond military tactics. We must remember how we treated the veterans who came home. There were no parades. No parties. In some places, they were scorned. In others, ignored. Western Pennsylvania was more muted, but silence can be just as cruel.
When The Moving Wall came to Ellwood City in August 2022, I felt its impact again. A police escort and a line of 75 motorcycles brought it in, under a giant American flag strung across the Leslie Sabo Bridge. The panels went up near the shelter at Ewing Park, and for three days, the wall stood open to all—24 hours a day.
The ceremonies were moving. Rocky Bleier, a Vietnam veteran and Pittsburgh Steeler, spoke at the opening. There was a Gold Star recognition event. Bagpipes played “Amazing Grace.” Boy Scouts raised and retired the flag each day. The rifle salutes and taps echoed through the park.
People came by the hundreds—veterans, students, families. Some found names they knew. Some just stood and stared. You could feel the weight of memory and loss. For some, it was the first chance to say goodbye. For others, a way to teach the next generation what that war cost us.
When I visit the Wall—or its traveling twin—I am always reminded of what could have been, and what was. I think of those who fought, those who died, and those who carried the war home with them. I think of my own narrow escape, and of my service that followed.
The Moving Wall lives up to its name. It doesn’t erase the past. But it helps us carry it, together.
