A Wall to lean on

Glover - who rode horseback in the funeral procession of President John F. Kennedy - was reported missing in action in Vietnam on Feb. 19, 1968. He was 26 years old, a father-to-be whose body was never recovered.

“We were hoping he would be found,’’ Glover said quietly. “You always hope there will be some closure.’’

He found solace at The Wall That Heals, a traveling replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington that made a four-day visit to Fraser Field in Lynn. The memorial bears the names of 58,261 servicemen and women who died in the war. The fallen - whose names are listed chronologically by date of death - include 1,335 from Massachusetts and 225 from New Hampshire.

The wall drew thousands of visitors, who came in sunshine and rain, morning to midnight, to remember loved ones. “It’s wonderful that it’s here,’’ said Marsha Cheeseman, 90, of Wenham, who sat in a wheelchair as she placed a wreath for her late son, Air Force Captain Alan B. Cheeseman.

He was 26, a new father, and a graduate of the US Air Force Academy who was killed in action on Aug. 13, 1970. “He was killed on his last mis sion,’’ his father, Herbert, 90, said softly as he gazed across the baseball field wet from an early-evening rainfall.

The Cheesemans were one of several Gold Star families - those who have lost relatives to war - honored during a solemn wreath-laying ceremony. “This really is a moment of special pride in remembrance,’’ said Thomas G. Kelley, the state’s veterans services secretary. “Seven letters are all it takes to make the word ‘Vietnam.’ But it’s more than a word . . . It’s a period in time.’’

The Vietnam War, whose veterans are now retirement age, spanned much of the 1960s and early 1970s. New high school graduates were drafted into the Army. Others enlisted in the Marines to fight in communist South Vietnam. Kathryn Hindes, a medic from Beverly, served stateside.

“They stuck me in Fort Meade, N.J.,’’ said Hindes, now 79, who uses a walker. “But I wanted to go over. I wanted to serve. . . . I have always been proud of my service. Vietnam veterans deserve this recognition.’’

Some still remember a painful return home, greeted by protesters angry with the government policy. “Like many of my fellow veterans, I came home to Logan Airport, where a young teenage girl was screaming at me, spitting at me, and calling me ‘baby killer,’ ’’ recalled Donald Pierce, 58, of Methuen, who served almost four years in the Air Force. “People say ‘Oh, that didn’t happen.’ But it happened to me.’’

The Wall That Heals - one of two traveling Vietnam memorials - isn’t about politics. It’s about reflection and remembrance, grace and gratitude. “Even though they may have disagreed with the Vietnam War, people understand now that it’s important to thank those veterans,’’ said Dan Schenk, program manager of the Vietnam Memorial Fund, the nonprofit in Washington that owns the wall. “The wall is a place for veterans to come to receive praise, honor, and ‘thank yous,’ even if it is a bit late.’’

The wall travels thousands of miles each year, packed up in a tractor-trailer, pulling into small towns and busy cities. “We go from coast to coast,’’ Schenk said. “We put in a lot of miles. We don’t want to keep the wall from anybody who wants it.’’

The wall, which last came to Lynn in 1999, returned for its only New England visit this year. A planning committee of 15 met for about a year, raising $20,000 and rounding up 200 volunteers to stay at the site, which was open for 24 hours a day.

“We wanted as many people as possible to be able to see it,’’ said Michael Sweeney, veterans services director in Lynn. “You could tell, by those who came, that it meant a lot.’’

Lynn paid homage to fallen and forgotten Vietnam veterans through silence and song, poetry and prayer. Cannon salutes honored the dead. A bagpiper walked the length of the 250-foot wall in measured step, playing “Amazing Grace.’’

Veterans in black motorcycle vests held US flags. The Lynn Public School Band played a medley of service anthems, drawing veterans to their feet when their branch was honored. Brian Landry, a tenor from Lynn whose father is a Vietnam veteran, stood with his back to the wall, singing “America The Beautiful.’’

“It’s not a coincidence that the wall is at my back,’’ Landry said, who often performs at veterans events on the North Shore. “That’s how I feel about the men and women who served in Vietnam. They had our backs.’’

For some veterans, a visit to the wall evoked painful memories of long-ago battles. “I got hit nine times between the knee and neck,’’ said Jim Perkins, 63, of Boxford, a disabled Air Force veteran, who had tears streaming down his face into his white beard. “I only had three fractured vertebrae. I got lucky. My name could be on this wall.’’

Family and friends, their loss also raw, left personal remembrances at the base of the wall. A 45-rpm record of Otis Redding’s “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay’’ was sealed in a plastic bag. A copy of a letter awarding the Purple Heart posthumously to Lance Corporal Thomas P. Noonan Jr. of Brooklyn, N.Y., was placed under a rock.

Peter Hardiman of Lynn left flowers and a picture for his older brother, Kevin, who was killed in action when he was 18, four days after Christmas in 1967. “I’m proud of him,’’ said Hardiman, 47, as he visited the wall with his teenage daughter.

A group of veterans from Winthrop performed their own service at the wall. With flags and flowers, they marched across Fraser Field, pausing to read the names of seven men from the tiny peninsula town who died in Vietnam. “The town of Winthrop and the USA are proud of these seven men who made the ultimate sacrifice,’’ said Larry Holmes, the town’s veterans agent. And some learned of that sacrifice during a first visit to The Wall That Heals. “Wow,’’ said Maxwell Cote, 8, of Boxford, visiting with his mother and grandmother. “That’s huge.’’

Kathy McCabe can be reached at kmccabe@globe.com.