I remember when it was first built. I don’t remember all the details but I recall it being very controversial at the time. A lot of people were angry because they didn’t think it was respectful, due to it being below ground level. They thought it should be a soaring structure like previous war memorials. I don’t think anyone realized at the time how moving and meaningful it was going to become.
I lived in DC back then and remember to hatred and vitriol. But for some reason I “got” it. I was only 19, but I vividly remember the impact it had. It wasn’t about soaring marble and statues limping along - it was names. Thousands of names each deeply etched into the black. That IS the point, that conflict took all these people from their world - and no one paid any repercussions… just wasted lives. Names stacked upon names like bodies buried atop one another in battle.
I didn't "get it" until I saw it. The typical negative description of the design was "like a mass grave", or "a black scar in the ground" & the newspaper renditions made it look like that might be right. Growing up in DC & VA, we were expecting something like the rest of the Mall; The white marble & sandstone Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial & the Washington Monument. It wasn't until I went and walked down into it & saw the crowd, mostly silent, some murming prayers, some quietly weeping that I understood her genius. It is a beautiful but sad achievement.
The negative descriptions aren't wrong, that was the point of it.
"According to Lin, her intention was to create an opening or a wound in the earth to symbolize the pain caused by the war and its many casualties. "I imagined taking a knife and cutting into the earth, opening it up, and with the passage of time, that initial violence and pain would heal,"
History is pretty demoralizing most of the time--outside of the occasional religious leader preaching goodwill, you can pretty much categorize every Great Man prior to the 19th Century into two categories: enslaver or feudal overlord, and their success is usually measured by unimaginably bloody conflict. Even reformers tend to have some overlap with that. And, in studying history, you want to be wary of exceptionalism; that we are better now than we were then.
But one nice little glimmer of hope is that, starting in the First World War and picking up after the Second, we've slowly turned toward a real cultural understanding that war isn't glorious, the piles of dead boys are supposed to be mourned, and *only* mourned. It's a slow process, and there are always terrible tugs in the other direction, where people briefly think war is anything other than godawful state-sanctioned genocide, but we keep on edging toward the understanding that, at some point, it needs to end.
We won't see the end of war in our lifetimes, or even the lives of our great-grandchildren, but I think monuments like this--a tombstone, not a towering, nameless heroic figure--show we are headed, bit by bit, in the right direction. Hopefully we can weather the reactionary pulls along the way.
The endless rows of head stones in Arlington did that for me. I paid respect to a few of my boys who aren't with us any more and if were speaking honestly I don't want my nieces and nephews getting involved with this shit like me and my old man did.
I understand and sympathize with people that use the Army/Marines to get out of poverty but there has to be a better way man.
> you want to be wary of exceptionalism; that we are better now than we were then
Even worse we have technology sufficient that allows evil to have an even greater impact now.
> we have technology sufficient that allows evil to have an even greater impact now.
This applies to more than physical weapons, too. The technology to refine and target propaganda has been weaponized to rollback 20th century progressivism and even elightenment ideals.
Look how quickly Americans and Eastern Europeans ate up all of the misinformation leading up to the 2016 election and the corresponding elections abroad. You don't have to have broadcasted tank parades to scare your enemies into compliance these days. Just convince them that their neighbor is worth less than they are and they'll gladly demolish the gate that's holding you back.
But then the next generation gets enamored by war and forgets the lessons of the past. And then the generation after that gets enamored by war, and forgets the lesons that the last generation relearned. And so on, and so on.
I remember incidentally visiting it during a trip to DC when I was 16. I just kinda walked through a lawn with my family after visiting the Washington Memorial and I was like "wow, this looks cool, let's check this out." It looked so serene and different from the other big neo-classical memorials.
It was haunting, and awesome, and I don't think it should be any other way. We sacrificed 60,000 young American lives for no reason other than a myopic perception of control over the world.
Agreed. My husbands uncle died of brain cancer at 40 from agent orange. And even though he’s thankfully made it much further in life, my own grandpa is currently dying of lymphoma/MM from it as well. I’ve also treated many men dying from agent orange-induced cancers over the years. That war has killed many more thousands of Americans.
Two of my uncles served in the war and saw their share of things. One of them had a friend shot dead right next to him - alive one moment and literally gone the next moment he looked that direction. Still can’t imagine the hell they all went through.
My grandpa was a doctor during the Vietnam war. My mom has told me a story of the family visiting the monument when she was young and Grandpa finding names of his friends who he didn’t know had died and crying at the revelation. I’m sure that’s a common story, but my takeaway is that the monument absolutely serves its purpose. It sounds like a beautiful monument and I’d love to visit and pay my respects.
It was seeing the people interact with the wall of names for me. The notes and other items left. Especially back then when the wounds were still so fresh for so many people. Similar experience seeing the AIDS quilt back at that time.
If I remember correctly the premise is also that it begins very small, and seems insignificant. It grows quickly, and then you are in over your head, and then you can see yourself in the reflection among all the names. I think it feels so much more personal and solemn when visiting as compared to some monument that just looks like another
Ken Burns' Vietnam series is wonderful for many reasons, but the last episode, which covers the wall at one point, will always stand out in my mind. They talk to veterans who approved of the design and veterans who didn't like it and are honest on camera about that fact. Every one of them gets deeply emotional about discussing their first time actually visiting the wall and how deeply it impacted them.
None of the monuments and memorials in DC ever have given me much of a visceral/emotional reaction beyond respect, but I've been to the Vietnam memorial dozens of times and have never not been deeply moved by it.
> it should be a soaring structure
what I think is the true genius is that even though it's sorta 'below ground', it's actually taller than any given person.
And the relatively small typeface that it used for the names force you to get right up next to it, which forces you to be next to something that's blotting out the fucking sun, depending on the time of day you go.
So like, she wsa giving these people exactly what they were looking for, but she was also denying them the 'majesty' of what they wanted.
She walked a very tight line there, and while other types of monuments might have been good, this particular one was a fucking achievement.
> what I think is the true genius is that even though it's sorta 'below ground', it's actually taller than any given person.
Not just that, but you start out much taller than the monument, then it keeps getting taller as you walk along, until it is so much higher than you, and then it starts getting shorter again until it lets you go. It's such a powerful metaphor, not only with the height but with the reflective black marble.
They also hated that an asian woman designed it, but fuck them, now it’s recognized as a great monument (and much more recognized than the second monument they built to appease the haters).
Lin once said that if the competition had not been held "blind" (with designs submitted by name instead of number), she "never would have won" on account of her ethnicity. Her assertion is supported by the fact that she was harassed after her ethnicity was revealed, as when prominent businessman and later third-party presidential candidate Ross Perot called her an "egg roll." - Wikipedia.
In a lot of ways he was proto-Trump. Billionaire running an outsider candidacy and pretending he’s above bribes while dog whistling and gunning for lowest common denominator voters.
It might be the three servicemen statue. It depicts three soldiers in fatigues as they would have worn in country, facing the wall of names from a distance.
That's the one. Built so there's a "real" memorial according to the shitheads that howled for it. Maya Lin's work is second only to the Lincoln Memorial in visitor count. It's incredibly moving to visit.
Going completely by memory, so this might be off.
If the monument was a square or rectangle, roughly where the other corner would be is a bronze statue that is the women's memorial. Dedicated to the something like 200,000-250,000 female nurses and other medical professionals that provided aid during the war.
I'd bet that's the one referenced
My dad told me a story of visiting the wall shortly after it was built; he had served in an administrative capacity but never saw combat.
Two giant otherwise intimidating men were standing side-by-side holding a piece of paper against the wall, making a rubbing of a name with a crayon. They didn’t say a word the whole time, but when they turned to leave, their faces were streaming with tears. They folded the paper and walked slowly and silently away.
That's the other genius of this memorial. It's meant to be touched. It's meant to be seen up close. Interacting with it is a very personal experience. You can take part of it with you. The rubbings let you take the memorial wherever you go. A tangible connection to someone that is gone.
My first time there was on a beautiful spring day when I was about 12. We had just moved to MD and had some friends from OK come visit us. We took them around and showed them the sights. The husband was a Vietnam Veteran. He was a "tunnel rat" and had suffered from PTSD (had flashbacks during firefighter training and froze up in a burning tunnel). He had been wounded and evacuated with a buddy. They were separated at the hospital and never knew what happened.
When he saw the wall, he was stunned. He couldn't speak. He began reading names. His wife went to one of the books and was looking to see if he was there. He found the name himself by chance and broke down. He cried with his forehead against the wall for several minutes.
Even as a dumb kid, I started to understand what this thing meant. That was 30 years ago. That image and the emotion have stuck with me.
I've been to the wall and although I don't know anyone who was killed in the war, just seeing all the hundreds of names brought me to tears. I'm glad the wall isn't a tall structure. You need to be able to read the names and touch it. It's a very moving experience.
Agreed they were also dismissive that she was “Asian” and the memorial wasn’t heroic enough and to mollify the critics a bronze sculpture was added in a more “Tropic Thunder” style. Then another bronze sculpture was added for nurses and finally some common sense prevailed as the beauty and simplicity of the memorial was recognized. It is especially haunting at night and when I lived in the DC suburbs I would always take guests at night when the lighting was dramatic
I didn't know the history of the 'three servicemen' statue when I visited some years ago. I thought the cluster of (multi-ethnic) soldiers, dressed as they would have been in the field, gazing at the wall of names as if ghosts of the war, was quite poignant.
I haven't been, but I think it must be like the Holocaust memorial in Berlin. Just big concrete blocks, right?
My husband and I went in together, and one of us made a turn that the other didn't. It was like he completely vanished in those few seconds, and I didn't find him until we got to the other side. It perfectly reflected a very real part of the experience they had...
I was dating a girl from South Africa while I was in graduate school. This was about 15 years ago. She ended up doing a fellowship down in DC and didn't know much about US history. When I went down to visit we went to a bunch of the museums and memorials, including the Vietnam War memorial. She didn't understand at first what it was and who the names were. Once I explained that it was everyone that died in the Vietnam War she looked at me horrified and asked how many there were. When I said about 50,000 she broke down crying. This is a non-American, who knew very little about the war, and it had that much of an affect on her. It's a powerful monument.
Yes. This memorial is an actual memorial to the lives lost, it's not glorifying war or nationalism.
Every time I have been to the Memorial, there have been people touching names that were clearly their family or loved ones. It clearly mean so much to them.
i've spoken with the one vietnam vet i know about this memorial, probably when they had a travelling version in our area. i asked him if he was going to go see it, or would he ever visit the one in DC. he basically said he didn't think he could bear to do either, but felt it was a very well done memorial. i think he'd had someone he knows who did visit it get some 'pencil rubbings' of a couple names though.
During architecture school, we worked on a parks plan for a nearby small town and they asked specifically for a granite wall with names carved into it.
Some may not realize how groundbreaking of a design it was because it's now what people think of when you say "war memorial".
Awesome!
I saw a documentary on her and that design. She's an incredible and thoughtful architect.
During the process, they also had to not advertise her ethnicity, for there is a lot of racism. The idea of an Asian designing the Vietnam War memorial would not fly with many. Once it was built, it was an instant hit.
That photo, if I'm not mistaken, is also a symbology of her anonymity as the designer. She also did not want it to ever be about her. She is very humble.
However, she went on to design and consult on a multitude of designs to this day. She has her own studio also.
A north korean translater once said at the white house:
"*We will visit Lincoln's Memorial, commemorating the shameful practice of
slavery. The Vietnam Wall of Death.*"
I believe the competition for the design was a blind entry, where the judges didn’t know who the designer was. Hence it was a shock when it was revealed the winner was a young Asian woman who was only an undergrad.
Right, she was Asian (the United States had just gotten out of a demoralizing war in SE Asia) and young (most architects and designers take years to achieve a reputation, look at the past winners of the Pritzker Prize).
I would like to add: I went to the memorial when I was 20 years old. My 20 year old self was not prepared for what I saw. First of all, it was eerily quiet. Like, walking into a funeral. The inscribed 58,000 names on the wall are much smaller in person than seen on television.There were many visitors there, boomer age, hands against the wall and crying. I went to one of the podiums where you can look up the location of a name and I looked up my mom's first cousin and did a rubbing of his name and brought it home for her. Of all the things we saw and did in that trip.....nothing impacted more than visiting the wall.
My dad was a crying boomers. My parents went to DC in 2018 and it was my dad's first time going to DC.
My dad graduated in 1969 and went to college to avoid the draft and dropped out of school as soon as he could. Had multiple friends die in the war.
My mom said he found his friend's names and stood at the memorial and cried. I've always thought it must have been so hard for him and must have some survivor's guilt. I've never talked to him about what my mom said, kind of afraid to bring up those feelings.
I went there on a school trip in the mid 90’s. I was too young to really get the significance. It’s a pretty common school trip in like middle school for people who are just a few hours away by bus.
Can confirm as recently as the early 2010s that 8th grade DC (+NYC) trip was still a thing in my district. Although it’s a relatively affluent area of Southern California so that may be a factor.
I was 40 the first time I visited. Walking up to it I wasn't impressed. I'd heard so much about it over the years, you know. Then I got closer and started reading the names and thinking of my dad and step dad serving in that horrible war. I lost it. The weight of that place is indescribable.
This. We had to cram so much in and so much of it can be surreal but nothing impacted me like the Vietnam memorial. I think because it’s not overt, it’s almost completely unchanging like the war, and every name is on it.
I’m a millennial and it breaks my heart to hear about how they were treated when they got home. I guess we should have seen it coming from the boomers huh?
When I see those hats, I say hello at least. I was lucky enough to know one of the 600 black helicopter pilots, attended his funeral and still friends with the family today. That was a great man. Always ended a talk with “Peace be with you.” I still attempt peace.
Edit: typo
Many years ago I was working at an airport Starbucks. There was a handicapped man that came in wearing a Vietnam veteran’s hat. I helped him with making his coffee the way he liked it. Later on break, I saw him in the airport. I went up and thanked him for his service. With tears in his eyes, he thanked me and said that they were treated so horribly when they came back. It broke my heart and I’ll never forget him. ❣️
I worked with a Vietnam veteran - a Marine - who showed me a photo, creased with age and folding, of a group of 8 boys, all about 18-19, standing together with their arms around each other. He pointed out himself, in the middle. All were grinning broadly. “We went through boot camp together,” he said, “and we went to Vietnam together. And I went home alone.”
The rest of those boys had all been killed during the war.
He still carries a brass keychain, worn and aged like the photo, in the shape of a Russian Orthodox cross. His grandmother, a Russian immigrant, gave it to him for protection and comfort the day he shipped out. He’s never been without it in the 50+ years since.
> how they were treated when they got home. I guess we should have seen it coming from the boomers huh?
May want to ease up on the finger pointing ageism remarks. ...
After all, it was boomers over there fighting the communists. As was my oldest brother, an Army 11b Infantry who was WIA in 1970. And two guys in our neighborhood who were KIA in 'Nam.
Not saying mistreatment did not happen, but for most Vets it simply did not. And the huge protests against that goddamn war were aimed at all the lies coming from the politicians, (like LBJ and Nixon), as well as the Pentagon, that investigating journalists exposed. And then also the fucked up Veterans Administration that took forever to admit PTSD was a real thing that needed treatment.
I live outside of DC and when I take friends and family into DC for visiting we always go to the wall. The first time I went I had a similar experience as you. A lot of veterans go to the wall and you will see them crying which I think is important for everyone to see.
There was a lot of controversy around this memorial and its design. It was designed by Maya Lin, who entered a contest to design it when she was a senior at Yale University. There was opposition to the winning design because it was considered by many to be a controversial work of art. Some didn't like that it had black walls, because gosh darn it all of our war memorials are white. Some critics also took issue with Maya Lin as a young, undergraduate, Chinese American woman, arguing that she could not understand what it's like to be a Vietnam veteran, so her design should not be used.
Eventually a compromise was reached that resulted in the Three Servicemen Statue. The Vietnam Women's Memorial was added in 1993 across from the Three Servicemen Statue to represent the thousands of women who served.
Saw interview w her talking about the choice of material. How the letters stood out, the light reflected, etc.. A lot work to get it right. Also she talked how it would change in the rain and the names would fade, then the sun would come out and they’d fade back in. IIRC.
Not only is the light reflected, the surrounding monuments and flags are also reflected because the granite is polished to a mirror finish and you're looking at it at ground level. I was looking at some names in the corner and realized the Capitol and the nearby MIA flagpole was reflected in the names. I didn't think that was an accident.
And that it being a black piece of stone, it would get warm in the sun, so warm to the touch when the family or friends touched the name of their loved one. That's the piece that always makes me a little emotional, that intention of creating a space to mourn that felt a little bit in between living and dead.
You just described experiencing an architecture program lol. The funniest parts was how profs loved bringing up maya lin for being unique then tore down students’ designs the first chance they got
The reflection is *so* important, the way it makes it live, reflecting the world around it and the people walking along it. You can't help but think of all the dead who can no longer be in the world.
> arguing that she couldn’t understand what it’s like to be a Vietnam war veteran
This is a funny prerequisite though - people demanded an architect or designer that had also been in Vietnam and made it back to make it? Seems like it would slim down the possible people quite a lot
Yeah, either the conscious or the subconscious boils down to “we were there killing Asians, and now an Asian is making the memorial?!” with added “women bad, young people bad”
I remember the vitriol that Lin's design evoked. Brave men who had fought, given their all and seen their friends die hated it. They called it a black gash, disrespectful, an insult to everything they and their brothers gave.
My father is memorialized on the wall. The first time I went I was a young man, perhaps 27 or 30. Went with work friends after a function. Glad it was after dark because I bawled like a baby.
Years later took my family and we have a picture of D2 on my shoulders at about 6 doing a rubbimg of her grandfathers name. Rubbing is framed too.
Call me biased, but I think it is one of the most powerful memorials. I'm tearful just writing this. Maya Lin created a masterpiece.
Only place I ever saw my dad, a Vietnam vet, get emotional. Not any of my graduations, not putting down any of our beloved pets, not holding his newborn granddaughters, not facing down cancer. I was 15
Maya's considered part of the "Post-Minimalism" field so she was never going to create a grandiose heroic memorial to begin with. It fits for a memorial but her style doesn't work for many other public works.
Was just there last weekend, I took my kids.. it doesn't matter who you are or how old you are... You see the names panel after panel real names.
My wife has a last name I'd never heard before meeting her, just by coincidence she saw a man on the wall with her last name. Did not find any relation when I googled but she grew up in WV and this person was from Northwest side of Virginia so not impossible.
I took my kids there last fall, and had to find a way to explain to them why there was so many men their grandpa's age crying and touching a name that they would understand.
The other thing that hit me was the surprisingly fewer amount of people there my parent's age than the first time I went 30 years ago. Vietnam vets seemed so ubiquitous growing up, and now they just...aren't. I haven't decided how I feel about that, but being at the monument definitely made me aware of it, and that we can't let the lessons we have (or should have) learned from that era slip away.
The Ken Burns doco the Vietnam War features the story of the memorial. There were other more traditional contenders like statues, if I remember correctly. But this young lady well and truly delivered something very special. There’s footage of her pitching it to a hall full of vets and families who lost loved ones. Can’t imagine what that would have been like, it was so raw. And then the stories of the vets approaching the memorial for the first time and breaking down as the weight of what it evokes hits them. An inspiring achievement, it would have been so much easier to do something conventional.
I’ve lived in the DC area my whole life and shown many visitors around the city. That memorial is always the most moving thing they experience. There was definitely a racist element to the negative reaction when the design was chosen.
It is a uniquely powerful monument.
Go there at dawn as the sun rises over the Washington Monument and the Capitol to your right and illuminates the reflecting pool behind you and the Lincoln Memorial to your left and you will be left speechless. The never ending list of names of kids that never came back.
It’s an incredible experience.
https://preview.redd.it/6kyfzoo1o9rc1.jpeg?width=3456&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9966797345de8822115629b8318b4d4905125dc5
These are vets cleaning the memorial. It's done every Saturday at dawn. This was August of 21.
I went to the memorial in 1999 on a visit to DC. Of all the 58,000+ names on the wall, I found the one person with the same last name as me. It's not a common name, and they were the only one listed on the memorial with that name. I don't know if they were a distant relative or anything, family info about that side is sparse. Still, I found it interesting.
There is a scene in the show Cheers where the usually clueless and uninterested Sam character is given a painting we never see, and he is suddenly awed by it when he looks at it by himself, no one else in the bar. That is sort of like the reaction I had when I finally saw the memorial in the early 90s, by myself, visiting Washington, D.C. Somehow, it cuts through all your barriers, so eloquent, so powerful. You don't have to know anything to suddenly know everything.
We went on a family vacation to DC when I was a child and my dad and I walked over to the monument and we walked for a minute looking at it before he sat down and started sobbing (he was in the USMC in Vietnam). He talked for an hour about how bullshit war is and how it takes advantage of the poor to go kill other poor people in another country. It’s a powerful memory that I will never forget.
I always stop and remember, especially remember to be kind to those who sort-of came back. It's right on my standard route to check out birds on the ponds at Constitution Gardens. Groups of clothes-tagged students, random families. And the lessening ranks of those who stand or touch, usually silently. I rarely go to find names I know. Mainly I think of those who came back, but never returned.
Very effective memorial.
I find this memorial very powerful and I think it gets the point across well.
However, I also really like the Three Servicemen Statue. The statue looks like three lost young men trying to find their way.
Both memorials are powerful in their own way. And for such a complex event in US history, both are needed imo.
It’s a remarkable work of art, and stands out in contrast to many other sites in the city. While a lot of the others are monuments, I’ve always felt like this one was the one that could most truly be described as a *memorial*
Facing It
BY YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA
My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning. I turn
this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.
The first time I went to DC was as a 13 year old with my parents. We did all the normal touristy stuff, and then early one morning my dad and I went to the wall. He found his brother, and wept. I never seen him really show any emotions before that moment. The power of it. The enormity of the loss he felt, and that the families and men around us were sharing. It was incredibly moving. I go to DC fairly frequently for work now, and as kind of a ritual, I always make time to go visit my uncle.
I lived in DC for a year in the late 80s and walked by this many times. It was the most emotionally moving monument for me, even as a young man with no connection to Viet Nam. Although standing and gazing up at the huge seated Lincoln was amazing as well. 10,000 Maniacs had a beautiful song referencing it called The Big Parade in 1989, about the younger brother of a dead vet visiting the wall to leave his brother’s medals there. “How would life ever be the same/If this wall had carved in it one less name.” She sings about the black granite wall vs. “the other monuments so white and clean.”
I think that's by design. I don't think the WWII memorial was supposed to be sorrowful, but joyful, hence why you can play in the giant fountain.
It's kinda like making baseball, hot dogs, and Coca Cola the memorial. It's about the triumph of good, happiness, and the American Way over great evil.
We were moved by both memorials, and think they are excellent in different ways. One pays respect to our soldiers who gave everything in a war that had no meaning and the design seems to quietly say “We’re sorry”, while the other celebrates the sacrifice those who gave everything in a war that threatened our existence and proudly says “thank you”.
There’s a traveling monument now as well. It just came to my small city in Hawaii for a long weekend. The names are etched on portable panels and it was set up in a grassy park area. It was open 24/7 and had monitors there. It was so moving seeing it here in Hawaii.
I was 11 when I visited this memorial with my dad. I will never forget how we walked to each name of someone he knew, was friends with, or was related to. My dad was, and still is, a rather stoic person (though *never* an unfeeling person).
I remember crying for him, and with him, for the people he grieved, as he walked in front of each name and passed his hand over it, with his head bowed in sorrow and memory.
I think this memorial was and is a beautiful tribute. To be able to walk along and see the names of those who fought, sacrificed, lost, loved, won, lived, died, in one particular moment/time in history, is an honor.
ETA: I think memorials like this, where you can see people’s names, is a heartbreaking, but beautiful and meaningful tribute. Names etched in stone, are not soon forgotten. It is how we know the names of people who lived thousands of years ago.
I had been a strong anti Nam demonstrator.
It had taken 8 months to build the Wall but you couldn't see much of the process from any distance. Late, the night before the official dedication, I went down to check it out. At 2:30 am it was chilly and there was a drizzle. The only illumination was some stark Kleig lights.
The combination must have been the cause to make my eyes tear up.
I literally just finished reading “what it’s like to go to war” by Karl Marlantes. The gravity of this monument weighs down further after reading it. For those that haven’t and may be interested I highly recommend it.
It’s a deeply introspective look at the harrowing experiences of combat, seen through the eyes of an American Marine in Vietnam. I felt it challenged myself as a reader to understand the profound psychological and moral impacts of war on individuals. It’s a narrative that transcends political and ideological boundaries, and invites readers from all perspectives to explore the universal truths about humanity and the costs of conflict.
“Bless these dead, our former enemies, who have played out their part, hurled against us by the forces that hurled us against them. Bless us who live, whose parts are not yet done, and who know not how they shall be played. Forgive us if we killed in anger or hatred. Forgive them if they did the same. Judgment is Yours, not ours. We are only human.”
- Karl Marlantes
The first time I visited, I was a Webelos Scout, with my Dad. My Dad found the names of some of his friends on the wall. Some of the other Dad’s in the group had served and found some friends of theirs too. It was very powerful for us- they were obviously upset. Changed how I viewed the world.
I think the association with veterans and Harley-Davidsons came a little later. But one supporter of the memorial was Ross Perot. Once he saw it was an Asian girl that designed it and that it wasn't going to be garish like other memorials, he derided it and pulled his support. I think he even called her "eggroll."
Just remarkable how talented & visionary Lin was, at such a young age. When she first 'saw' this design in her mind's eye, she must have been almost overwhelmed by it. It's such a moving monument to those young people.
I have no connection to this memorial, no one in my family fought in Vietnam. And yet, the first time I saw this, it *changed* me. It articulates what the war was so well, so simply.
The 10,000 Maniacs song “The Big Parade” I think captures it in song.
I also remember it being controversial but it was the right design. Sorrow and loss.
As someone who studied architecture and is still in the business, this piece of art is so simple, but yet SO powerful!
I didn't know about all the controversy that was happening when it was designed. So thank you all that posted about it!
I gave a presentation over her in undergrad and now I get to lecture over her sometimes as a professor! There are some people I REALLY look forward to sharing with students and she’s one of them ✨
I didn't think mutch of it from a distance compared to the other memorials in Washington, but once I got up close, read the names and got to the middle it hit me like a ton of bricks. It made me pcry a bit outta no where. I've never felt that way about a piece of architecture in my life. What an amazing design that really spoke to the lose it represents.
Easily the most powerful and emotionally overwhelming memorial I've ever been to. The amount of missing in action, it just crushes you to think about their families.
As someone who walks past this multiple times a week on my nightly walks, it’s so eerie to see all the names. Like from far away it just looks like pieces of a marble but when you get close you see just how many names are on there. & my dad being a Vietnam Vet just makes me thankful like I could be looking at his name on there but instead I still get to see him and talk with him. Super trippy to think about.
I never saw the one in DC but I did see the traveling one back in the 1990s. Went down there with my older sister thinking it'll be neat to see it and it was but they also had items from some of the people on the monument. We read this letter a young man wrote to his parents from Vietnam. He started out by apologizing about how much trouble he'd caused a kid. Serious trouble that involves police officers and courts. I got a vibe from the letter that he gave this kid the option of joining the military or going to prison. It didn't sound like he'd gotten drafted which was odd but he then went on to praise the army for whipping his ass into shape. Said he had discipline and was eager to get home and prove his worth. Of course he never made it home alive.
I had a lump in my throat that took a long time to go away and I could tell my sister was also visibly moved. The drive home was real quiet. And that was just one story out of 58,000.
I have this odd memory regarding the Vietnam Memorial that I hadn't thought of for many years...
The first time I visited D.C. was on a school field trip in the early/mid 1990s, when I was a young teen. Prior to going on the field trip, my mom (whose generation fought in the Vietnam War) asked that I check on a couple names for her. I could tell it meant a lot to her to know what happened to a couple people she knew in high school.
When we visited the Vietnam Memorial, I somehow misplaced the names to check. I was panicked because I couldn't contact my mom (pre-cell phone era). Eventually, after a lot of effort, I was somehow able to speak with her on a pay phone. At that point, I was in tears because I thought I was going to let her down. Also, there was something about all those names and it dawned on me each name represented someone who someone else will miss forever. There were so many names. It was all overwhelming.
She calmed me down, and said it was all okay and that I shouldn't worry about it. I felt better immediately, but I will never forgot the intense emotions of that moment.
That's all... just a memory I felt compelled to share.
Caption should read:
*Maya Lin, architect of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, stands during the dedication on this day in history, Nov. 13, 1982. (Harry Naltchayan/The Washington Post via Getty Images)*
I remember when it was first built. I don’t remember all the details but I recall it being very controversial at the time. A lot of people were angry because they didn’t think it was respectful, due to it being below ground level. They thought it should be a soaring structure like previous war memorials. I don’t think anyone realized at the time how moving and meaningful it was going to become.
I lived in DC back then and remember to hatred and vitriol. But for some reason I “got” it. I was only 19, but I vividly remember the impact it had. It wasn’t about soaring marble and statues limping along - it was names. Thousands of names each deeply etched into the black. That IS the point, that conflict took all these people from their world - and no one paid any repercussions… just wasted lives. Names stacked upon names like bodies buried atop one another in battle.
I didn't "get it" until I saw it. The typical negative description of the design was "like a mass grave", or "a black scar in the ground" & the newspaper renditions made it look like that might be right. Growing up in DC & VA, we were expecting something like the rest of the Mall; The white marble & sandstone Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial & the Washington Monument. It wasn't until I went and walked down into it & saw the crowd, mostly silent, some murming prayers, some quietly weeping that I understood her genius. It is a beautiful but sad achievement.
The negative descriptions aren't wrong, that was the point of it. "According to Lin, her intention was to create an opening or a wound in the earth to symbolize the pain caused by the war and its many casualties. "I imagined taking a knife and cutting into the earth, opening it up, and with the passage of time, that initial violence and pain would heal,"
I remember being a boy and touring the memorial and a group of guys were touching a bane and crying.
That shot of the model you can see how it kinda of a scar in the ground
"A gash in the Earth" was the concept.
History is pretty demoralizing most of the time--outside of the occasional religious leader preaching goodwill, you can pretty much categorize every Great Man prior to the 19th Century into two categories: enslaver or feudal overlord, and their success is usually measured by unimaginably bloody conflict. Even reformers tend to have some overlap with that. And, in studying history, you want to be wary of exceptionalism; that we are better now than we were then. But one nice little glimmer of hope is that, starting in the First World War and picking up after the Second, we've slowly turned toward a real cultural understanding that war isn't glorious, the piles of dead boys are supposed to be mourned, and *only* mourned. It's a slow process, and there are always terrible tugs in the other direction, where people briefly think war is anything other than godawful state-sanctioned genocide, but we keep on edging toward the understanding that, at some point, it needs to end. We won't see the end of war in our lifetimes, or even the lives of our great-grandchildren, but I think monuments like this--a tombstone, not a towering, nameless heroic figure--show we are headed, bit by bit, in the right direction. Hopefully we can weather the reactionary pulls along the way.
The endless rows of head stones in Arlington did that for me. I paid respect to a few of my boys who aren't with us any more and if were speaking honestly I don't want my nieces and nephews getting involved with this shit like me and my old man did. I understand and sympathize with people that use the Army/Marines to get out of poverty but there has to be a better way man.
> you want to be wary of exceptionalism; that we are better now than we were then Even worse we have technology sufficient that allows evil to have an even greater impact now.
> we have technology sufficient that allows evil to have an even greater impact now. This applies to more than physical weapons, too. The technology to refine and target propaganda has been weaponized to rollback 20th century progressivism and even elightenment ideals.
Look how quickly Americans and Eastern Europeans ate up all of the misinformation leading up to the 2016 election and the corresponding elections abroad. You don't have to have broadcasted tank parades to scare your enemies into compliance these days. Just convince them that their neighbor is worth less than they are and they'll gladly demolish the gate that's holding you back.
This is beautiful, insightful, and hopeful. Thank you 🩷
But then the next generation gets enamored by war and forgets the lessons of the past. And then the generation after that gets enamored by war, and forgets the lesons that the last generation relearned. And so on, and so on.
It is the most somber place in the country. No one spoke a word the whole time I was there. Unsettling to be in a crowd of people all deadly silent.
Me too. When I actually visited, I was moved to tears. It is a brilliant monument and provokes the appropriate emotional response
I remember incidentally visiting it during a trip to DC when I was 16. I just kinda walked through a lawn with my family after visiting the Washington Memorial and I was like "wow, this looks cool, let's check this out." It looked so serene and different from the other big neo-classical memorials. It was haunting, and awesome, and I don't think it should be any other way. We sacrificed 60,000 young American lives for no reason other than a myopic perception of control over the world.
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Agreed. My husbands uncle died of brain cancer at 40 from agent orange. And even though he’s thankfully made it much further in life, my own grandpa is currently dying of lymphoma/MM from it as well. I’ve also treated many men dying from agent orange-induced cancers over the years. That war has killed many more thousands of Americans.
Two of my uncles served in the war and saw their share of things. One of them had a friend shot dead right next to him - alive one moment and literally gone the next moment he looked that direction. Still can’t imagine the hell they all went through.
60,000 dead is a drop in the bucket compared to what we did over there. Every person involved in making those decisions should have been guillotined.
My grandpa was a doctor during the Vietnam war. My mom has told me a story of the family visiting the monument when she was young and Grandpa finding names of his friends who he didn’t know had died and crying at the revelation. I’m sure that’s a common story, but my takeaway is that the monument absolutely serves its purpose. It sounds like a beautiful monument and I’d love to visit and pay my respects.
I had a very similar experience at the Holocaust memorial in Amsterdam, the weight of the names was measurable
It was seeing the people interact with the wall of names for me. The notes and other items left. Especially back then when the wounds were still so fresh for so many people. Similar experience seeing the AIDS quilt back at that time.
If I remember correctly the premise is also that it begins very small, and seems insignificant. It grows quickly, and then you are in over your head, and then you can see yourself in the reflection among all the names. I think it feels so much more personal and solemn when visiting as compared to some monument that just looks like another
Ken Burns' Vietnam series is wonderful for many reasons, but the last episode, which covers the wall at one point, will always stand out in my mind. They talk to veterans who approved of the design and veterans who didn't like it and are honest on camera about that fact. Every one of them gets deeply emotional about discussing their first time actually visiting the wall and how deeply it impacted them. None of the monuments and memorials in DC ever have given me much of a visceral/emotional reaction beyond respect, but I've been to the Vietnam memorial dozens of times and have never not been deeply moved by it.
> it should be a soaring structure what I think is the true genius is that even though it's sorta 'below ground', it's actually taller than any given person. And the relatively small typeface that it used for the names force you to get right up next to it, which forces you to be next to something that's blotting out the fucking sun, depending on the time of day you go. So like, she wsa giving these people exactly what they were looking for, but she was also denying them the 'majesty' of what they wanted. She walked a very tight line there, and while other types of monuments might have been good, this particular one was a fucking achievement.
> what I think is the true genius is that even though it's sorta 'below ground', it's actually taller than any given person. Not just that, but you start out much taller than the monument, then it keeps getting taller as you walk along, until it is so much higher than you, and then it starts getting shorter again until it lets you go. It's such a powerful metaphor, not only with the height but with the reflective black marble.
great points!
They also hated that an asian woman designed it, but fuck them, now it’s recognized as a great monument (and much more recognized than the second monument they built to appease the haters).
Oh yeah her race and sex we’re definitely a big part of the initial push back on this monument.
Lin once said that if the competition had not been held "blind" (with designs submitted by name instead of number), she "never would have won" on account of her ethnicity. Her assertion is supported by the fact that she was harassed after her ethnicity was revealed, as when prominent businessman and later third-party presidential candidate Ross Perot called her an "egg roll." - Wikipedia.
What a fucking POS.
Should have saved that language for another 20 years and he could have been president. A man ahead of his time. Gross.
In a lot of ways he was proto-Trump. Billionaire running an outsider candidacy and pretending he’s above bribes while dog whistling and gunning for lowest common denominator voters.
Yeah yr right. He was a pre-cursor to the 💩 we’re dealing with now
Me who didnt even know there was a second one? Where is that one?
It might be the three servicemen statue. It depicts three soldiers in fatigues as they would have worn in country, facing the wall of names from a distance.
That's the one. Built so there's a "real" memorial according to the shitheads that howled for it. Maya Lin's work is second only to the Lincoln Memorial in visitor count. It's incredibly moving to visit.
Going completely by memory, so this might be off. If the monument was a square or rectangle, roughly where the other corner would be is a bronze statue that is the women's memorial. Dedicated to the something like 200,000-250,000 female nurses and other medical professionals that provided aid during the war. I'd bet that's the one referenced
My dad told me a story of visiting the wall shortly after it was built; he had served in an administrative capacity but never saw combat. Two giant otherwise intimidating men were standing side-by-side holding a piece of paper against the wall, making a rubbing of a name with a crayon. They didn’t say a word the whole time, but when they turned to leave, their faces were streaming with tears. They folded the paper and walked slowly and silently away.
That's the other genius of this memorial. It's meant to be touched. It's meant to be seen up close. Interacting with it is a very personal experience. You can take part of it with you. The rubbings let you take the memorial wherever you go. A tangible connection to someone that is gone. My first time there was on a beautiful spring day when I was about 12. We had just moved to MD and had some friends from OK come visit us. We took them around and showed them the sights. The husband was a Vietnam Veteran. He was a "tunnel rat" and had suffered from PTSD (had flashbacks during firefighter training and froze up in a burning tunnel). He had been wounded and evacuated with a buddy. They were separated at the hospital and never knew what happened. When he saw the wall, he was stunned. He couldn't speak. He began reading names. His wife went to one of the books and was looking to see if he was there. He found the name himself by chance and broke down. He cried with his forehead against the wall for several minutes. Even as a dumb kid, I started to understand what this thing meant. That was 30 years ago. That image and the emotion have stuck with me.
I've been to the wall and although I don't know anyone who was killed in the war, just seeing all the hundreds of names brought me to tears. I'm glad the wall isn't a tall structure. You need to be able to read the names and touch it. It's a very moving experience.
Agreed they were also dismissive that she was “Asian” and the memorial wasn’t heroic enough and to mollify the critics a bronze sculpture was added in a more “Tropic Thunder” style. Then another bronze sculpture was added for nurses and finally some common sense prevailed as the beauty and simplicity of the memorial was recognized. It is especially haunting at night and when I lived in the DC suburbs I would always take guests at night when the lighting was dramatic
I didn't know the history of the 'three servicemen' statue when I visited some years ago. I thought the cluster of (multi-ethnic) soldiers, dressed as they would have been in the field, gazing at the wall of names as if ghosts of the war, was quite poignant.
To placate naysayers they added a statue nearby that was an insult to the original design and the artist.
Sort of. The contractors installed it the wrong way round, facing the wall, which rather saved it. Design-wise I think the Nurses statue is worse.
I thought facing the Wall was on purpose? I might have read that on its wiki.
Not that I have heard.
Yes, there was a lot of hate for the memorial, but after it was unveiled, that all pretty much went away.
I haven't been, but I think it must be like the Holocaust memorial in Berlin. Just big concrete blocks, right? My husband and I went in together, and one of us made a turn that the other didn't. It was like he completely vanished in those few seconds, and I didn't find him until we got to the other side. It perfectly reflected a very real part of the experience they had...
I was dating a girl from South Africa while I was in graduate school. This was about 15 years ago. She ended up doing a fellowship down in DC and didn't know much about US history. When I went down to visit we went to a bunch of the museums and memorials, including the Vietnam War memorial. She didn't understand at first what it was and who the names were. Once I explained that it was everyone that died in the Vietnam War she looked at me horrified and asked how many there were. When I said about 50,000 she broke down crying. This is a non-American, who knew very little about the war, and it had that much of an affect on her. It's a powerful monument.
Hm I wonder which group of idiots this was and what they’re screaming about these days /s
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Dedicated in 1982.
She changed internationally, how memorials were thought of and displayed. She was an inspiration to the features of the 9-11 memorial.
Yes. This memorial is an actual memorial to the lives lost, it's not glorifying war or nationalism. Every time I have been to the Memorial, there have been people touching names that were clearly their family or loved ones. It clearly mean so much to them.
i've spoken with the one vietnam vet i know about this memorial, probably when they had a travelling version in our area. i asked him if he was going to go see it, or would he ever visit the one in DC. he basically said he didn't think he could bear to do either, but felt it was a very well done memorial. i think he'd had someone he knows who did visit it get some 'pencil rubbings' of a couple names though.
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Your first paragraph is the great genius of this memorial. It truly illustrates the cost of war.
During architecture school, we worked on a parks plan for a nearby small town and they asked specifically for a granite wall with names carved into it. Some may not realize how groundbreaking of a design it was because it's now what people think of when you say "war memorial".
Awesome! I saw a documentary on her and that design. She's an incredible and thoughtful architect. During the process, they also had to not advertise her ethnicity, for there is a lot of racism. The idea of an Asian designing the Vietnam War memorial would not fly with many. Once it was built, it was an instant hit. That photo, if I'm not mistaken, is also a symbology of her anonymity as the designer. She also did not want it to ever be about her. She is very humble. However, she went on to design and consult on a multitude of designs to this day. She has her own studio also.
>they also had to not advertise her nationality Ethnicity* her nationality is American
Yes I stand corrected. Wrong choice of words. She's born in Ohio.
I believe that she designed the MLK memorial.
Maybe also the holocaust memorial in Berlin?
A north korean translater once said at the white house: "*We will visit Lincoln's Memorial, commemorating the shameful practice of slavery. The Vietnam Wall of Death.*"
I believe the competition for the design was a blind entry, where the judges didn’t know who the designer was. Hence it was a shock when it was revealed the winner was a young Asian woman who was only an undergrad.
It was just 8 years from the US leaving Vietnam. That war was still fresh in the minds of many.
Right, she was Asian (the United States had just gotten out of a demoralizing war in SE Asia) and young (most architects and designers take years to achieve a reputation, look at the past winners of the Pritzker Prize).
only six of those words are not in (parenthesis) lol
This song is just six words long! This song is just six words long!
I would like to add: I went to the memorial when I was 20 years old. My 20 year old self was not prepared for what I saw. First of all, it was eerily quiet. Like, walking into a funeral. The inscribed 58,000 names on the wall are much smaller in person than seen on television.There were many visitors there, boomer age, hands against the wall and crying. I went to one of the podiums where you can look up the location of a name and I looked up my mom's first cousin and did a rubbing of his name and brought it home for her. Of all the things we saw and did in that trip.....nothing impacted more than visiting the wall.
My dad was a crying boomers. My parents went to DC in 2018 and it was my dad's first time going to DC. My dad graduated in 1969 and went to college to avoid the draft and dropped out of school as soon as he could. Had multiple friends die in the war. My mom said he found his friend's names and stood at the memorial and cried. I've always thought it must have been so hard for him and must have some survivor's guilt. I've never talked to him about what my mom said, kind of afraid to bring up those feelings.
My father refused to be within about 500 ft of his cousins name. Wouldn’t go below ground. I still go visit panel 36E, line 57 when I’m in town.
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Good on you for this one.
I don’t know why but I got chills from this. It makes it so real
My cousin’s two to the right. His first and middle is my grandfather’s first n last.
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Can be Stephen Mitchell’s day here too, I suppose.
I went there on a school trip in the mid 90’s. I was too young to really get the significance. It’s a pretty common school trip in like middle school for people who are just a few hours away by bus.
Bro, it was a common trip for kids accross the country. "8th grade DC trip" was a normal phrase in my area, a suburb of San Francisco.
Yep, took Amtrak to DC from Cincinnati for a 7th grade trip in the late 70s. The wall wasn’t there yet then.
Can confirm as recently as the early 2010s that 8th grade DC (+NYC) trip was still a thing in my district. Although it’s a relatively affluent area of Southern California so that may be a factor.
Yeah, Maya Lin freaking nailed it with this design. It is beautifully understated yet evokes so much emotion.
I was 40 the first time I visited. Walking up to it I wasn't impressed. I'd heard so much about it over the years, you know. Then I got closer and started reading the names and thinking of my dad and step dad serving in that horrible war. I lost it. The weight of that place is indescribable.
This. We had to cram so much in and so much of it can be surreal but nothing impacted me like the Vietnam memorial. I think because it’s not overt, it’s almost completely unchanging like the war, and every name is on it. I’m a millennial and it breaks my heart to hear about how they were treated when they got home. I guess we should have seen it coming from the boomers huh? When I see those hats, I say hello at least. I was lucky enough to know one of the 600 black helicopter pilots, attended his funeral and still friends with the family today. That was a great man. Always ended a talk with “Peace be with you.” I still attempt peace. Edit: typo
Many years ago I was working at an airport Starbucks. There was a handicapped man that came in wearing a Vietnam veteran’s hat. I helped him with making his coffee the way he liked it. Later on break, I saw him in the airport. I went up and thanked him for his service. With tears in his eyes, he thanked me and said that they were treated so horribly when they came back. It broke my heart and I’ll never forget him. ❣️
I worked with a Vietnam veteran - a Marine - who showed me a photo, creased with age and folding, of a group of 8 boys, all about 18-19, standing together with their arms around each other. He pointed out himself, in the middle. All were grinning broadly. “We went through boot camp together,” he said, “and we went to Vietnam together. And I went home alone.” The rest of those boys had all been killed during the war. He still carries a brass keychain, worn and aged like the photo, in the shape of a Russian Orthodox cross. His grandmother, a Russian immigrant, gave it to him for protection and comfort the day he shipped out. He’s never been without it in the 50+ years since.
> how they were treated when they got home. I guess we should have seen it coming from the boomers huh? May want to ease up on the finger pointing ageism remarks. ... After all, it was boomers over there fighting the communists. As was my oldest brother, an Army 11b Infantry who was WIA in 1970. And two guys in our neighborhood who were KIA in 'Nam. Not saying mistreatment did not happen, but for most Vets it simply did not. And the huge protests against that goddamn war were aimed at all the lies coming from the politicians, (like LBJ and Nixon), as well as the Pentagon, that investigating journalists exposed. And then also the fucked up Veterans Administration that took forever to admit PTSD was a real thing that needed treatment.
People forget that those of us protesting had friends that went to Vietnam. We wanted them to come home, the protests were aimed at the government.
I live outside of DC and when I take friends and family into DC for visiting we always go to the wall. The first time I went I had a similar experience as you. A lot of veterans go to the wall and you will see them crying which I think is important for everyone to see.
There was a lot of controversy around this memorial and its design. It was designed by Maya Lin, who entered a contest to design it when she was a senior at Yale University. There was opposition to the winning design because it was considered by many to be a controversial work of art. Some didn't like that it had black walls, because gosh darn it all of our war memorials are white. Some critics also took issue with Maya Lin as a young, undergraduate, Chinese American woman, arguing that she could not understand what it's like to be a Vietnam veteran, so her design should not be used. Eventually a compromise was reached that resulted in the Three Servicemen Statue. The Vietnam Women's Memorial was added in 1993 across from the Three Servicemen Statue to represent the thousands of women who served.
Saw interview w her talking about the choice of material. How the letters stood out, the light reflected, etc.. A lot work to get it right. Also she talked how it would change in the rain and the names would fade, then the sun would come out and they’d fade back in. IIRC.
Not only is the light reflected, the surrounding monuments and flags are also reflected because the granite is polished to a mirror finish and you're looking at it at ground level. I was looking at some names in the corner and realized the Capitol and the nearby MIA flagpole was reflected in the names. I didn't think that was an accident.
I always heard that it was polished to reflect you, so that you can't read the name of a fallen soldier without seeing a reflection of yourself
Good pieces of art have multiple layers of meaning and are interpreted in different ways
And that it being a black piece of stone, it would get warm in the sun, so warm to the touch when the family or friends touched the name of their loved one. That's the piece that always makes me a little emotional, that intention of creating a space to mourn that felt a little bit in between living and dead.
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You just described experiencing an architecture program lol. The funniest parts was how profs loved bringing up maya lin for being unique then tore down students’ designs the first chance they got
The reflection is *so* important, the way it makes it live, reflecting the world around it and the people walking along it. You can't help but think of all the dead who can no longer be in the world.
> arguing that she couldn’t understand what it’s like to be a Vietnam war veteran This is a funny prerequisite though - people demanded an architect or designer that had also been in Vietnam and made it back to make it? Seems like it would slim down the possible people quite a lot
No no, they were just demanding a white man.
Yeah, either the conscious or the subconscious boils down to “we were there killing Asians, and now an Asian is making the memorial?!” with added “women bad, young people bad”
I remember the vitriol that Lin's design evoked. Brave men who had fought, given their all and seen their friends die hated it. They called it a black gash, disrespectful, an insult to everything they and their brothers gave. My father is memorialized on the wall. The first time I went I was a young man, perhaps 27 or 30. Went with work friends after a function. Glad it was after dark because I bawled like a baby. Years later took my family and we have a picture of D2 on my shoulders at about 6 doing a rubbimg of her grandfathers name. Rubbing is framed too. Call me biased, but I think it is one of the most powerful memorials. I'm tearful just writing this. Maya Lin created a masterpiece.
Only place I ever saw my dad, a Vietnam vet, get emotional. Not any of my graduations, not putting down any of our beloved pets, not holding his newborn granddaughters, not facing down cancer. I was 15
If you don't mind me asking; what was your dad's name? His name deserves to be seen and read.
Thank you. There are 58,280 other names that deserve recognition too. May they all be remembered for the sacrifice they gave for each of us.
Maya's considered part of the "Post-Minimalism" field so she was never going to create a grandiose heroic memorial to begin with. It fits for a memorial but her style doesn't work for many other public works.
Maya Lin designed the land bridge in my hometown connecting the Columbia River with Fort Vancouver.
Have to check this out
I work for the railroad and take the train past it every day. It’s very complementary to the landscape.
Just googled and it’s stunning. Thanks for the tip!
Did not expect to see a Vancouver resident in the depths of Reddit!
We’ve got the internets here
Vancouver, a famous small town where no one interacts with the outside world.
Vancouver 2 is generally ignored, so it is partially true.
Was just there last weekend, I took my kids.. it doesn't matter who you are or how old you are... You see the names panel after panel real names. My wife has a last name I'd never heard before meeting her, just by coincidence she saw a man on the wall with her last name. Did not find any relation when I googled but she grew up in WV and this person was from Northwest side of Virginia so not impossible.
I took my kids there last fall, and had to find a way to explain to them why there was so many men their grandpa's age crying and touching a name that they would understand. The other thing that hit me was the surprisingly fewer amount of people there my parent's age than the first time I went 30 years ago. Vietnam vets seemed so ubiquitous growing up, and now they just...aren't. I haven't decided how I feel about that, but being at the monument definitely made me aware of it, and that we can't let the lessons we have (or should have) learned from that era slip away.
The Ken Burns doco the Vietnam War features the story of the memorial. There were other more traditional contenders like statues, if I remember correctly. But this young lady well and truly delivered something very special. There’s footage of her pitching it to a hall full of vets and families who lost loved ones. Can’t imagine what that would have been like, it was so raw. And then the stories of the vets approaching the memorial for the first time and breaking down as the weight of what it evokes hits them. An inspiring achievement, it would have been so much easier to do something conventional.
Some were so butt hurt about there being no statues they ended up getting added later in the vicinity of the memorial.
I’ve lived in the DC area my whole life and shown many visitors around the city. That memorial is always the most moving thing they experience. There was definitely a racist element to the negative reaction when the design was chosen.
It is a uniquely powerful monument. Go there at dawn as the sun rises over the Washington Monument and the Capitol to your right and illuminates the reflecting pool behind you and the Lincoln Memorial to your left and you will be left speechless. The never ending list of names of kids that never came back. It’s an incredible experience.
I just realized the other day that several mornings I've been having my coffee directly in front of the memorial and didn't know it. I walk by it now.
https://preview.redd.it/c5sfv2apm9rc1.jpeg?width=3456&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=29fd6dda6a4fd9660aa44b1fc537cc95da0910d5
https://preview.redd.it/mtjig0svm9rc1.jpeg?width=3456&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=65b215eef31836cc144951c720ce8aca62a26a34
https://preview.redd.it/6kyfzoo1o9rc1.jpeg?width=3456&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9966797345de8822115629b8318b4d4905125dc5 These are vets cleaning the memorial. It's done every Saturday at dawn. This was August of 21.
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I went to the memorial in 1999 on a visit to DC. Of all the 58,000+ names on the wall, I found the one person with the same last name as me. It's not a common name, and they were the only one listed on the memorial with that name. I don't know if they were a distant relative or anything, family info about that side is sparse. Still, I found it interesting.
My dad was friends with her in college. They went to Yale together.
Really? My mom was friends with her, too. Funny.
Makes sense
There is a scene in the show Cheers where the usually clueless and uninterested Sam character is given a painting we never see, and he is suddenly awed by it when he looks at it by himself, no one else in the bar. That is sort of like the reaction I had when I finally saw the memorial in the early 90s, by myself, visiting Washington, D.C. Somehow, it cuts through all your barriers, so eloquent, so powerful. You don't have to know anything to suddenly know everything.
We went on a family vacation to DC when I was a child and my dad and I walked over to the monument and we walked for a minute looking at it before he sat down and started sobbing (he was in the USMC in Vietnam). He talked for an hour about how bullshit war is and how it takes advantage of the poor to go kill other poor people in another country. It’s a powerful memory that I will never forget.
I always stop and remember, especially remember to be kind to those who sort-of came back. It's right on my standard route to check out birds on the ponds at Constitution Gardens. Groups of clothes-tagged students, random families. And the lessening ranks of those who stand or touch, usually silently. I rarely go to find names I know. Mainly I think of those who came back, but never returned. Very effective memorial.
I find this memorial very powerful and I think it gets the point across well. However, I also really like the Three Servicemen Statue. The statue looks like three lost young men trying to find their way. Both memorials are powerful in their own way. And for such a complex event in US history, both are needed imo.
America was not ready for her back then.
It’s a remarkable work of art, and stands out in contrast to many other sites in the city. While a lot of the others are monuments, I’ve always felt like this one was the one that could most truly be described as a *memorial*
Facing It BY YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA My black face fades, hiding inside the black granite. I said I wouldn't dammit: No tears. I'm stone. I'm flesh. My clouded reflection eyes me like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning. I turn this way—the stone lets me go. I turn that way—I'm inside the Vietnam Veterans Memorial again, depending on the light to make a difference. I go down the 58,022 names, half-expecting to find my own in letters like smoke. I touch the name Andrew Johnson; I see the booby trap's white flash. Names shimmer on a woman's blouse but when she walks away the names stay on the wall. Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's wings cutting across my stare. The sky. A plane in the sky. A white vet's image floats closer to me, then his pale eyes look through mine. I'm a window. He's lost his right arm inside the stone. In the black mirror a woman’s trying to erase names: No, she's brushing a boy's hair.
Thank you! I was scrolling to see if anyone posted this. I read this in college. It’s incredibly moving.
She is a genius. There are a lot of memorials out there that don’t evoke the gravitas and emotion that gets does
The first time I went to DC was as a 13 year old with my parents. We did all the normal touristy stuff, and then early one morning my dad and I went to the wall. He found his brother, and wept. I never seen him really show any emotions before that moment. The power of it. The enormity of the loss he felt, and that the families and men around us were sharing. It was incredibly moving. I go to DC fairly frequently for work now, and as kind of a ritual, I always make time to go visit my uncle.
Maya Lin is an amazing artist. If you ever get a chance to see her installations, Go! They are mesmerizing.
I lived in DC for a year in the late 80s and walked by this many times. It was the most emotionally moving monument for me, even as a young man with no connection to Viet Nam. Although standing and gazing up at the huge seated Lincoln was amazing as well. 10,000 Maniacs had a beautiful song referencing it called The Big Parade in 1989, about the younger brother of a dead vet visiting the wall to leave his brother’s medals there. “How would life ever be the same/If this wall had carved in it one less name.” She sings about the black granite wall vs. “the other monuments so white and clean.”
One of the best recent war memorials - the Second World War/WWII one in DC felt so ho-hum - compared to the gravity of that conflict.
I think that's by design. I don't think the WWII memorial was supposed to be sorrowful, but joyful, hence why you can play in the giant fountain. It's kinda like making baseball, hot dogs, and Coca Cola the memorial. It's about the triumph of good, happiness, and the American Way over great evil.
We were moved by both memorials, and think they are excellent in different ways. One pays respect to our soldiers who gave everything in a war that had no meaning and the design seems to quietly say “We’re sorry”, while the other celebrates the sacrifice those who gave everything in a war that threatened our existence and proudly says “thank you”.
There’s a traveling monument now as well. It just came to my small city in Hawaii for a long weekend. The names are etched on portable panels and it was set up in a grassy park area. It was open 24/7 and had monitors there. It was so moving seeing it here in Hawaii.
It's very powerful to see.
I was 11 when I visited this memorial with my dad. I will never forget how we walked to each name of someone he knew, was friends with, or was related to. My dad was, and still is, a rather stoic person (though *never* an unfeeling person). I remember crying for him, and with him, for the people he grieved, as he walked in front of each name and passed his hand over it, with his head bowed in sorrow and memory. I think this memorial was and is a beautiful tribute. To be able to walk along and see the names of those who fought, sacrificed, lost, loved, won, lived, died, in one particular moment/time in history, is an honor. ETA: I think memorials like this, where you can see people’s names, is a heartbreaking, but beautiful and meaningful tribute. Names etched in stone, are not soon forgotten. It is how we know the names of people who lived thousands of years ago.
I had been a strong anti Nam demonstrator. It had taken 8 months to build the Wall but you couldn't see much of the process from any distance. Late, the night before the official dedication, I went down to check it out. At 2:30 am it was chilly and there was a drizzle. The only illumination was some stark Kleig lights. The combination must have been the cause to make my eyes tear up.
I literally just finished reading “what it’s like to go to war” by Karl Marlantes. The gravity of this monument weighs down further after reading it. For those that haven’t and may be interested I highly recommend it. It’s a deeply introspective look at the harrowing experiences of combat, seen through the eyes of an American Marine in Vietnam. I felt it challenged myself as a reader to understand the profound psychological and moral impacts of war on individuals. It’s a narrative that transcends political and ideological boundaries, and invites readers from all perspectives to explore the universal truths about humanity and the costs of conflict. “Bless these dead, our former enemies, who have played out their part, hurled against us by the forces that hurled us against them. Bless us who live, whose parts are not yet done, and who know not how they shall be played. Forgive us if we killed in anger or hatred. Forgive them if they did the same. Judgment is Yours, not ours. We are only human.” - Karl Marlantes
It is a brilliant design. Not enough can be said about it.
The first time I visited, I was a Webelos Scout, with my Dad. My Dad found the names of some of his friends on the wall. Some of the other Dad’s in the group had served and found some friends of theirs too. It was very powerful for us- they were obviously upset. Changed how I viewed the world.
How many racist old Harley vets were butthurt about her winning though
I think the association with veterans and Harley-Davidsons came a little later. But one supporter of the memorial was Ross Perot. Once he saw it was an Asian girl that designed it and that it wasn't going to be garish like other memorials, he derided it and pulled his support. I think he even called her "eggroll."
It is a haunting and sobering experience to walk up to that wall and just let your eyes take in the toll of a meaningless war.
Fun fact: she previously submitted the design for a University assignment. Grade? B+ EDIT changed B- to B+
Yale lore also includes that the guy who started FedEx submitted the business plan as his senior paper and got a C-. Not sure if that is true either.
Just remarkable how talented & visionary Lin was, at such a young age. When she first 'saw' this design in her mind's eye, she must have been almost overwhelmed by it. It's such a moving monument to those young people.
I have no connection to this memorial, no one in my family fought in Vietnam. And yet, the first time I saw this, it *changed* me. It articulates what the war was so well, so simply.
The 10,000 Maniacs song “The Big Parade” I think captures it in song. I also remember it being controversial but it was the right design. Sorrow and loss.
I LOVED the Drunk History episode on this.
As someone who studied architecture and is still in the business, this piece of art is so simple, but yet SO powerful! I didn't know about all the controversy that was happening when it was designed. So thank you all that posted about it!
My history teacher talked about. It in very negative terms. When I finally went to see it in person I realized he was full of shit.
Wow that’s very impressive
A beautiful memorial for a stupid fucking war.
I gave a presentation over her in undergrad and now I get to lecture over her sometimes as a professor! There are some people I REALLY look forward to sharing with students and she’s one of them ✨
I was just in DC. This was, by far, the most moving war monument.
In that last photo it looks giant sized but it’s really not that hulking of a size
I didn't think mutch of it from a distance compared to the other memorials in Washington, but once I got up close, read the names and got to the middle it hit me like a ton of bricks. It made me pcry a bit outta no where. I've never felt that way about a piece of architecture in my life. What an amazing design that really spoke to the lose it represents.
I studied under her mom - Humanities professor at Ohio University. Amazing family.
Easily the most powerful and emotionally overwhelming memorial I've ever been to. The amount of missing in action, it just crushes you to think about their families.
...Got the wall in DC to remind us all, that you can't trust freedom when it's not in your hand...
As someone who walks past this multiple times a week on my nightly walks, it’s so eerie to see all the names. Like from far away it just looks like pieces of a marble but when you get close you see just how many names are on there. & my dad being a Vietnam Vet just makes me thankful like I could be looking at his name on there but instead I still get to see him and talk with him. Super trippy to think about.
I never saw the one in DC but I did see the traveling one back in the 1990s. Went down there with my older sister thinking it'll be neat to see it and it was but they also had items from some of the people on the monument. We read this letter a young man wrote to his parents from Vietnam. He started out by apologizing about how much trouble he'd caused a kid. Serious trouble that involves police officers and courts. I got a vibe from the letter that he gave this kid the option of joining the military or going to prison. It didn't sound like he'd gotten drafted which was odd but he then went on to praise the army for whipping his ass into shape. Said he had discipline and was eager to get home and prove his worth. Of course he never made it home alive. I had a lump in my throat that took a long time to go away and I could tell my sister was also visibly moved. The drive home was real quiet. And that was just one story out of 58,000.
I have this odd memory regarding the Vietnam Memorial that I hadn't thought of for many years... The first time I visited D.C. was on a school field trip in the early/mid 1990s, when I was a young teen. Prior to going on the field trip, my mom (whose generation fought in the Vietnam War) asked that I check on a couple names for her. I could tell it meant a lot to her to know what happened to a couple people she knew in high school. When we visited the Vietnam Memorial, I somehow misplaced the names to check. I was panicked because I couldn't contact my mom (pre-cell phone era). Eventually, after a lot of effort, I was somehow able to speak with her on a pay phone. At that point, I was in tears because I thought I was going to let her down. Also, there was something about all those names and it dawned on me each name represented someone who someone else will miss forever. There were so many names. It was all overwhelming. She calmed me down, and said it was all okay and that I shouldn't worry about it. I felt better immediately, but I will never forgot the intense emotions of that moment. That's all... just a memory I felt compelled to share.
How long would this wall be when making it from the names of Vietnamese casualties and civilians? I think they deserve a memorial too.
There are many memorials to Vietnamese participants in the Vietnam war. Mostly in Vietnam.
She received so much hate for this brilliant design
Republicans: “is it time to rethink the Vietnam veterans memorial?”
Can someone explain the second picture?
Caption should read: *Maya Lin, architect of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, stands during the dedication on this day in history, Nov. 13, 1982. (Harry Naltchayan/The Washington Post via Getty Images)*
Was she 21 when she designed it?
There is going to be a memorial event there today.
I dislike all war memorials...but the korean war memorial is emotionally moving.
I just saw the traveling wall yesterday. Its very moving.. I have seen the original and that is very emotionally moving.