Retired U.S. Army Command Sgt. Maj. Bennie G. Adkins, who has received the Medal of Honor, is set to deliver the keynote address during the opening ceremony of "The Wall That Heals."
The 250-foot replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and mobile education center will be in Johns Creek, at Newtown park, from March 30 to April 2.
Adkins has been honored for his actions during 38 hours of close-combat fighting against enemy forces in Vietnam in March 1966, according to a news release.
“Despite being wounded, Adkins continued to fight enemy forces, helped to evacuate injured soldiers, and rallied the remaining survivors and led the group into the jungle where they evaded the enemy for 48 hours until they were rescued by helicopter,” the release says.
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President Barack Obama awarded the Alabama native with the Medal of Honor in 2014.
Adkins’s speech is set for March 30 at 10 a.m., during the 2017 tour’s only metro Atlanta stop. A second state stop in the Candler County city of Metter, in middle Georgia, is scheduled for October 19-22.
The mobile memorial was in Georgia as recently as Nov. 2016, when it stopped in Woodstock.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund’s half-scale replica will be open 24 hours a day and free to the public.
