It’s hard to
imagine that as beloved as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is now, that it was
once referred to by critics as “the black gash of shame”. Just to the northeast
of the Lincoln Memorial, it is very different from war memorials created in
earlier times. One writer has recently called it “the most controversial and brilliantly successful works of public art in American history”, and many agree.
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| Vietnam Veteran's Memorial |
The 58,000
plus names of those who died or remain missing from the Vietnam War, without rank
or unit designation are all inscribed on 140 black granite panels. The panels
start out very short on the ends and are ten feet tall at the center as the
walkway in front of the panels descends below ground. The two sets of panels
form a large “v” shape and the highly polished black granite reflects the images
of the visitors, looking at the names.
The names
are arranged chronologically based on their date of death. The earliest deaths
from 1959 are recorded at the top of the center-east panel go to the last east
panel and then start again at the far west panel and ending at the top of the
center-west panel with names from 1975. The overall effect that the Wall creates is
deeply moving, even healing for many who visit.
Mementos,
letters, flowers and other items are left along the base of the Wall and all
the non-organic material is collected and stored by the National Park Service. There
are podiums nearby with printed directories for locating names on the numbered
panels of the wall. And visitors can take
impressions of the names by pressing a piece of paper over the name and rubbing
it with a pencil.
Not far away
is a bronze statue, created by Frederick Hart named The Three Soldiers, depicting a White, Black and Hispanic
American male soldiers. Nearby the sculpture is a memorial plaque honoring
those “who served in the Vietnam War and died later as a result of their
service” and just to the east, is another bronze sculpture, The Vietnam Women’s
Memorial, designed by Glenna Goodacre, depicting three uniformed women with a wounded soldier.
The
inspiration for the memorial came from Jan Scruggs who had served as an
infantryman and was wounded during the Vietnam War. He eventually raised over
$8 million to build the memorial. Because the war had been so politically divisive his
idea was to create a memorial that would focus on warriors and would be
apolitical. A design competition was held that set four major criteria that
included that it contain all the names of the dead and missing from the war.
Over 1400
entries had been submitted by the deadline in 1981 and the winner was Maya Lin,
a 21-year-old Yale University architecture student. As news of the design got
out, there was a great deal of criticism that it was too abstract and reflected
no heroism on the part of the soldiers in the war. To satisfy
the criticism, before the Wall was completed, it was decided to add the realistic
sculpture of three soldiers and a flag.
The Vietnam Veteran's Memorial Fund is now planning to create an educational center with information about the war and
the names on the wall. It will be built underground to preserve the landscape
of the area near the memorial.
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