THE VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL
Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Maya Lin presents her design of
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
November 2020 ¢ NORTH SHORE TOWERS COURIER 35
BY LORRAINE BERTAN,
CULTURE COMMITTEE
War memorials are created
to remember and
honor those affected or
involved in a conflict or war. Each
memorial is unique and It may be
the only way that groups or individuals
who have perished may
be remembered. War memorials
are historical markers and serve
to inform younger generations of
sacrifices made and the conditions
of that time. Memorials also reflect
the thoughts and opinions of the
people who commission them or
design them. They become focal
points for people to grieve, remember
and learn.
President Ford declared: “This
day, May 7, 1975, the end of the
Vietnam War Era.”
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial
in Washington D.C. was the inspiration
of Jan C. Scruggs, a Vietnam
veteran who wrote on November 11,
1979: “The bitterness I feel when I
remember carrying the lifeless bodies
of close friends through the mire
of Vietnam will probably never subside.
I still wonder if anything can
be found to bring any purpose to all
the suffering and death.” I recently
came across some lines from a poem
by Archibald MacLeish, “The Young
Dead Soldiers” which may give that
sacrifice some meaning: They say:
“We were young. We have died.
Remember us.”
What were some of the events that
led Scruggs to his decision to commemorate
the dead and missing in
action veterans of the Vietnam War?
After he was discharged from the
army, he was at loose ends, enrolling
in college and then dropping out.
He bought a motorcycle and traveled
throughout the United States
with other unhappy veterans. He
married Becky Freeman in 1974,
graduated from American College
with a Bachelor’s degree in 1975. He
became a graduate student, majoring
in psychology with an emphasis
on posttraumatic stress disorder
and received his Master’s degree in
1977. He joined the United States
Department of Labor as an investigator
for the office of Equal Opportunity
Employment and became an expert
on Posttraumatic Stress.
In March 1979 he and his wife
watched the movie, The “Deer
Hunter,” and afterward experienced
flashbacks of his Vietnam War
experiences. At this point, the idea
of a Vietnam War Memorial with
the names of the soldiers who died
came to mind. On May 28, 1979,
he announced the formation of the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund
(VVMF). John Wheeler III, an
attorney and Vietnam veteran, volunteered
to raise funds along with
another Vietnam veteran, Robert
Doubt, and officers from West Point.
Eight million dollars was raised from
private donations.
Jan Scruggs and Robert Doubek
contacted the Maryland Senator,
Charles Mathius, a World WarII
veteran. At the time there was concern
about the treatment of returning
Vietnam veterans and Scruggs
and Mathius were looking for ways
to help them. Although the money
raised was from private donations,
the site for the memorial had to be
approved by Congress. Scruggs,
Wheeler and Doubek scouted sites
on the Mall in Washington, D.C. by
bicycle and decided on a stretch of
parklands known as Constitution
Gardens. It was close to the Lincoln
Memorial.
Jack Wheeler was a Washington
insider who contacted Senator John
Warner, who volunteered to raise
funds and introduce the members
of the VVMF to Congress. On
November 8, 1979, the VVMF held
a press conference where Senators
Mathius and Warner introduced
legislation to grant two acres of land
near the Lincoln Memorial for the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial
group would transition from a volunteer
committee to a profession
organization, opening an office in
Washington and hiring a staff. The
head of the Gold Star Mothers
organization joined the group and
was most helpful in communicating
with members of the public who had
lost children to war. John Warner
invited donors to his home to meet
his then wife, Elizabeth Taylor, who
proved to be an effective fund raiser.
On July 1, 1980, President Jimmy
Carter signed legislation providing
two acres for the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial on the National Mall.
In October 1980, the design for the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial (VVM)
would be selected by a national
competition, open to American
citizens age 18 years and older. The
deadline for submissions was March
31, 1981. The judges included architects,
structural engineers, landscape
architects, sculptors, urban designers
and a historian. The design had
to address the four criteria:
• Be reflective and contemplative
in character
• Harmonize with its
surroundings
• Contain the names of those
who had died in the conflict or were
still missing
• Make no political statement
about the war
1,421 design entries were submitted,
and No. 1,056 was chosen. Maya
Lin, 21 years old, an architecture
student at Yale University and the
daughter of Chinese immigrants, was
chosen. Maya Lin’s concept was to
create a “park within a park,” a quiet
area for contemplation. The walkway
leading to the walls is below ground
level. Maya Lin was taking a course
in Funerary Architecture at Yale and
developed the design for the memorial
as a requirement for the course. (A
bit or irony: Her grade for the course
was B.)
The monument consists of two
identical walls spreading out in a
V shape. Each wall is over 246 feet
long, appearing to be cut into the
earth, with the walls at the apex of
the V. The names follow chronological
order for the date of death
or missing in action. The material
for the walls is polished black
granite which reflect the visitors
and buildings in the background.
The lettering is incised to reveal
gray, which makes the letters of the
names extremely visible. The VVM
is situated between the Washington
Memorial and the Lincoln
Memorial, an impressive site.
There was considerable controversy
over the design, with outspoken
Vietnam veterans and congressmen
feeling the design was not “heroic”
enough to honor the veterans.
Reactions were so strong that the
Secretary of the Interior, James
Watt, refused to issue a building
permit until statues were added. The
American sculptor, Frederick Elliot
Hart, was commissioned to design
the “Three Soldiers Statue” which
included an African-American soldier,
a European-American soldier
and a Hispanic soldier. It was placed
far enough away from the walls so
that only its reflection appeared
on the walls and was added to the
monument in 1984. However, this
infuriated Maya Lin but mollified
the opponents. Another statue, the
“Vietnam Women’s Memorial,” was
designed by Glenna Goodacre. It
was added in 1993 to commemorate
the women who served in Vietnam.
The statue shows three nurses and a
wounded soldier. Ninety percent of
the women who served in Vietnam
were nurses, and eight women were
killed in service, and their names are
inscribed on the wall. The Vietnam
Women’s Memorial is the first to
show women in service.
The design of the wall allows
for the addition of names of soldiers,
since new information about
Vietnam soldiers can surface. The
eligibility dates for inscription range
from November 1, 1955-May 15,
1975 and the addition of new names
is determined by the Department of
Defense. When the wall was originally
dedicated, there were 57,939
names inscribed. Now there are
58,318 names inscribed.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is
the most visited monument, after the
Lincoln Memorial, in Washington
D.C. The abstract simplicity of the
granite wall, and the enormity of the
names of the dead soldiers, evoke
the tragic cost of war.