Seven slow and solemn bell tolls rang in tribute during a memorial dedication ceremony Monday on Fort Carson for the latest group of veterans to be honored in permanence at the post.

Just west of the post’s visitor center and 4th Infantry Division Museum, near the sidewalk leading to the Kit Carson statue, members of the local Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 1075, active-duty service members and their families gathered to unveil and dedicate an engraved stone slab honoring the Vietnam War’s “heroes who didn’t come home” and the veterans who did.

The memorial is the first at Fort Carson dedicated to Vietnam veterans, organizers said.

“We dedicate this site as a sacred place at Fort Carson where people can gather to take pictures, where veterans can gather and share experiences with each other or just stand or sit alone and ponder thoughts that they can never share with anyone,” VVA Chapter 1075 chaplain LeRoy Trusty said.

Sixty-one units were activated at Fort Carson between 1965 and 1967, and, after six years of fighting in Vietnam, the 4th Infantry Division returned to Fort Carson and made the post its headquarters in 1970.

The memorial stone rests on a bed of 58 red-stained bricks, symbolizing the 58,220 service members who died in the conflict.

When Colorado Springs’ VVA chapter raised the idea of a permanent memorial in January, organizers also brought forth a request to bury a capsule – set to be reopened in 2043 – directly behind the stone, Chapter 1075 president Thomas Dowell, USAF (Ret.), said.

The Army approved the request in July.

“There’s 30 letters (inside),” Dowell said of the time capsule. “In mine, I have my retirement orders, promotion orders, dog tags. I have 12 things in there that, hopefully, my grandkids — or great grandkids, which I don’t have yet — in 20 years will open and have.”

The Honor Bell Foundation, whose primary focus is rendering respectful, final honors for U.S. veterans and service members killed in action, traveled from Denver to Colorado Springs for the ceremony with its 1,000-pound bronze tolling bell in tow.

Cast in 2016, the Honor Bell contains donated artifacts from 12 deceased Colorado veterans, including a Purple Heart, service medals from various wars and other uniform insignia and accessories.

The seven tolls — representing the choice to serve, camaraderie, patriotism, respect, dignity, honor and the value of human life — offered a symbolic final salute to fallen Vietnam veterans.

Dowell said the VVA hopes the memorial, simple and designed to blend with the quiet nature of the memorial park, can serve as the warm welcome many Vietnam veterans never received upon their return home decades ago.

“Vietnam Veterans of America’s founding principle promises that never again will one generation of veterans abandon another,” Dowell said.