Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Vietnam Veterans Memorial war memorial in Washington, D.C., built 1982. Designed by the American sculptor and architect Maya Ying Lin, it is a sloping, V-shaped, 493-ft (150-m) wall of highly polished black granite that descends 10 feet (3.05 meters) below grade level at its vertex. Often called simply "The Wall," it is inscribed with the names of the more than 58,000 Americans killed or missing during the Vietnam War . The austere, abstract nature of Lin's design, which was selected after a nationwide competition, at first made it a controversial way of memorializing the war's casualties. In the years since its construction, however, the simple, evocative, and starkly dramatic wall has become a national shrine, drawing more annual visitors than the Washington Monument or the Lincoln Memorial . Two nearby sculptures also honor those who served in the war; one is of three soldiers by Frederick E. Hart (erected 1984), the other of three nurses and a wounded soldier by Glenna Goodacre (erected 1993).

Vietnam Veterans Memorial. First proposed in 1979 by the Vietnam War veteran Jan Scruggs, this memorial, despite initial controversy, emerged soon after its completion in 1982 as one of the most visited and culturally influential public monuments of the late twentieth century. In 1980, Congress authorized the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, headed by Scruggs, to raise the necessary funds and oversee the construction on the Mall in Washington, D.C., of a memorial that incorporated the name of every U.S. serviceperson killed during the war. The fund soon raised the ten million dollars needed for a monument but encountered opposition over its choice of design. Maya Lin, a Yale architectural student who won an open competition, proposed a memorial consisting of two stark black marble walls that touched at a 125‐degree angle and sloped into the ground. Many political conservatives denounced the proposal as an antimonument and demanded a “traditional” statue and flagpole. James Watt, secretary of the interior in the Ronald Reagan administration, initially refused to authorize construction of the memorial but eventually compromised, accepting Lin's monument after the fund agreed to add a flagpole and a statue. Frederick Hart's more traditional statue of three soldiers was unveiled in 1984. In 1989, responding to demands by female veterans and women's organizations, Congress mandated that a sculptural figure be added to the memorial site to commemorate the contribution of servicewomen.

Many Vietnam veterans attended ceremonies dedicating the memorial in 1982 and embraced the memorial as a site for emotional catharsis. In the 1980s and 1990s, many visitors left letters and objects mourning the dead named on the walls. Hailed as an aesthetic triumph, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial influenced scores of local and state war memorials erected in the 1980s and 1990s.

Bibliography

Jan C. Scruggs and and Joel L. Swerdlow , To Heal a Nation: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 1985.
G. Kurt Piehler , Remembering War the American Way, 1995.

G. Kurt Piehler

Vietnam Veterans War Memorial a memorial to American military personnel killed or missing in the Vietnam War, located on The Mall in Washington, D.C. Designed by a young architect, Maya Lin, the original memorial consisted of a semi-sunken black marble wall inscribed with the names of the killed or missing and was the center of considerable controversy in that many veterans considered it symbolically inappropriate (”a black hole in the ground”). A more traditional memorial statue grouping and an American flag have since been added, and even many early opponents of Ms. Lin's design have come to accept the memorial as a fitting tribute to the sacrifice of those whose names are inscribed upon it.