PORTAGE PARK — A massive memorial to the soldiers who died in the Vietnam War will go on display Saturday at the Harold Washington Library Center for the first time in three years, officials said.
The "Above and Beyond" memorial features 58,000 replica dog tags honoring those who died as a result of their service in the war that stretched from March 1965 to May 1975.
First unveiled at the National Veterans Art Museum in 2001, the work by artists and veterans Rick Steinbock, Ned Broderick, Joe Fornelli and Mike Helbing is designed to make the "impact of combat visible to all."
A U.S. Military Honor Guard and a U.S. Navy Brass Quintet will participate in the ceremony heralding the reopening of the memorial set for 9:30 a.m. Saturday, organizers said. The exhibit is hung in the library's main escalator bank, which reaches the third floor, visible through a wall of windows and from all sides on the third floor.
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The memorial had been in storage since the National Veterans Art Museum moved from the South Side to Portage Park, where there was not enough room — or a strong-enough ceiling — to display the exhibit, organizers said.
The installation is funded by state funds as well as private grants from the Rabb Family Foundation, led by Rabb, and Col. Jennifer Pritzker's Pritzker Military Museum and Library.
"Above and Beyond" is scheduled to remain on exhibit at the library through April 2020, when it is scheduled to rejoin the museum's permanent collection in what museum officials hope will be the National Veterans Art Museum's permanent home.
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