I spent a couple of days this week amongst heroes.

As I walked around Bennett’s Creek Park on Thursday and Friday, I couldn’t help feeling proud — proud for my nation, which produced the fine men and women who were being honored at the park for four days; proud of the people who came to pay their respects; and proud of the man who decided more than a year ago to set up the event.

If you haven’t yet visited the park to see the American Veterans Traveling Tribute — brought to Suffolk by R.W. Baker & Co. funeral home in honor of its 125th anniversary in Suffolk — I highly recommend it. The centerpiece of the exhibit is an 80-percent replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall. But the organization’s “Cost of Freedom” exhibit includes displays honoring the Americans who fought and died in every conflict the nation has ever been involved in, as well as those who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks of 9-11-2001 and at Fort Hood. Every American military casualty since the Vietnam War is named.

The wall itself is a moving tribute, as anyone can attest who has walked alongside the black stone tablets etched with 58,195 names, located near the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The other memorials that are part of the exhibit add further poignancy and even more weight to the traveling exhibit.

Standing in the rain on Thursday as I watched 85-year-old Marjorie Hickey reach out and touch the etched name of her son, Marvin B. Smith Jr., it was hard to swallow the lump in my throat. Yet I had photographed her and needed to talk to her briefly for the story I intended to write. As she stood nearby with her husband, I approached and introduced myself. That’s when I learned that the image I had captured could never do justice to the story they had to tell.

A year after her son Marvin died in Vietnam, two of Marjorie Hickey’s other sons who were in the Army were subject to being sent to Southeast Asia. To keep that from happening, her husband volunteered at the age of 37 to go to war, thereby protecting his stepsons under a rule that allowed only one person from a family to be in Vietnam at a time. By the time he retired from the service in 1972, Leon Hickey had been injured in the line of duty yet had volunteered for a second tour.

I was amazed at their story, at their sacrifice and at the great love that it represented. Frankly, I was nearly speechless when I left them, moved almost to tears myself. They thanked me for asking about their story, and I practically gushed about how hearing it had lifted me up. It was a feeling I would get again as I spoke to other veterans who visited the memorial that afternoon.

The exhibit will be on display from 1 to 6 p.m. today before it’s packed away and hauled out of town for its next stop. Take some time to drop by and consider what others have given so that we may experience freedom. Better yet, ask a veteran there to tell you his story. You might be amazed at what you’ll hear.