He was in Vietnam, serving in the 199th Light Infantry Brigade. Waiting meant they would never reach their dedication deadline of November 11, 1982. Lin became a design consultant to the architect of record. In less than two weeks, these strategic bombers had shattered the norths defenses. Vietnam veteran Jan Scruggs, the individual to first pitch the idea of a memorial, used $2,800 of his own money to begin the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund in 1979, according to History. There were four phases to the design competition spanning almost one year: planning and preparation; the launch; the design phase; the design evaluation and selection; the press conference and public presentation. Associated Press correspondent Malcolm Mal Browne photographed him sitting quietly in the lotus position as the flames consumed him. It was becoming apparent that we had been able to be instruments to something far greater than anything we had ever imagined.. Perhaps thats an appropriate design for those who would spit on us still. Hi, Im Claire. As the commentaries of Wolfe, the New Republic, and the National Review demonstrate, the media was happy to add fuel to the fire of the veterans indignation through editorial contributions and obsessive coverage of the debate. We had to build credibility among the design community, but also build credibility with the veterans, said Woods. They were either ignored or shouted at and called vicious names. The debate over Minimalism, applied to Lins design, provided new terms through which to resurrect Americas internal debate over the validity of the Vietnam War. Ibid. Over several tense weeks, more debate followed, until the Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) and the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) gave their approval for a statue and flag in concept, pending suitable placement of those elements. 1. He would never forget those friends. A chronological listing would also allow a returning veteran to find his or her time of service on The Wall and those who died together to remain together forever on The Wall. But I was always impressed with the example my parents set.. By the time he returned home, three months after the explosion, the country was even further divided. Architectural drawings and a one-page written summary, 1980 or 1981. She greeted each visitor in a regal fashion, wearing a dressing gown, perfect makeup, and beautiful shoes that curled up at the toes. On June 11, 1963, an elderly Buddhist monk named Thich Quang Duc sat down in the street in front of a pagoda in Saigon to protest Diems policies. . They did not like its minimalist design. The public wanted to have a hand in helping to build the Memorial and in honoring the warrior, not the war. It was the reminder that the men who died in Vietnam all had faces and names, as well as friends and families who loved them dearly. Lins minimal plan was in sharp contrast to the traditional format for a memorial, which usually included figurative heroic sculpture. Warner, at the time married to Elizabeth Taylor, had strong connections to both Hollywood and the corporate world. But the slogan has proved remarkably effective and points to a deep truth: forever is a very short time in democratic politics, writes Philip Collins. Most, like the Lincoln Memorial, were competitions between select designers. The mission of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF) is to honor and preserve the legacy of service and educate all generations about the impact of the Vietnam War. North Vietnam 10. Though its location on federally owned property and its maintenance by the National Park Service might imply otherwise, the impetus to create the Vietnam Veterans Memorial came entirely from the private sector and from one man in particular: Jan Scruggs, a Vietnam veteran who had been wounded in the line of duty. On August 2, two North Vietnamese torpedo boats in broad daylight engaged USS Maddox, which was gathering communications intelligence in the Gulf of Tonkin. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. They were also the most collegial people, who would deliberate intensely but never argue or posture, Spreiregen remembered. After working alone for six months, Doubek was joined on the staff by Kathy Kielich, who served as the Office Manager throughout the project. It ended with communist victory in April 1975. As soon as the design was chosen,the next step was to consider the all-important details of getting it built. From the beginning, people have left tributes at its base. What they did need, however, was an acceptable location for the Memorial and enough support to push the idea through various governmental committees and agencies. To its own surprise, Hanoi found its forces advancing rapidly toward Saigon, realized victory was at hand, and renamed the operation the Ho Chi Minh Offensive. The American Legion, VFW, Disabled American Veterans (DAV), AMVETS, and Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) made sure their members knew that veterans were going to be honored and welcomed that week on the National Mall. But the memorial might not exist in the form we see today if it weren't for the support of architects who defended the young architect's controversial design. ' Continuing, Wolfe sarcastically asked: Shouldnt public sculpture delight the public or inspire the public or at least remind the public of cherished traditions? Initially, however, homefront support for the war effort grew, but by March Americans, perceiving no change in strategy that would bring the war to a conclusion, became increasingly disillusioned. I am always incredibly moved and heartened, especially when a veteran tells me that The Wall has helped them in some wayit could not mean more to me. and was so hurt by the controversy . History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. The Three Soldiers (also known as The Three Servicemen) is a bronze statue by Frederick Hart. Frederick Hart. As a senior at Yale University, Lin entered a nationwide competition sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, and her design was selected from the more than 1,400 submissions that were received. The controversy overshadowed the mission and what we were doing, until the Salute brought it all together. A tabula rasa upon which individuals could project their individual, personal experiences of the war was what the VVMF desired and, as historian Marita Sturken and others have observed, a tabula rasa was what they got. That bothered him. It was the most thoughtful and thorough discussion of design that I have ever heard, and I have heard many, he recalled. This alliance between the veterans and their conservative defenders was a new one, forged as a direct result of the cultural battle over the memorial site. Mao Zedongs Communist Party had won the Chinese Civil War in 1949, and western governmentsparticularly that of the U.Sfeared communist expansion throughout Southeast Asia. 170,000220,000 military In fact, he would spend a lifetime trying to honor their memory. Everyone wanted to join the effort. They came from veterans and from the neighbors, teachers, coaches and friends of veterans. In December Doubek became the Executive Director, working on a half-time basis for the first few months, and opened the VVMF office on January 2, 1980. Intellectually and emotionally, America could embrace the idea. Popular dark tourism attractions include Auschwitz, Chernobyl and Ground Zero. Daniel Libeskind. In April 1995, Vietnams communist government said 1.1 million combatants had died between 1954 and 1975, and another 600,000 wounded. On the second day, the jury examined the designs together, walking the many aisles and stopping at each of the 232 designs that had been flagged by one or more of the jurors, pausing to discuss each design that had been noted. Watt followed on March 11, 1982, by granting permission for the construction permits. CBS evening news anchor Walter Cronkite returned to Vietnam to see for himself what was happening. The construction process hits a snag when relentless and powerful critics, led by Tom Carhart, find an unsavory political message in the supposedly apolitical winning design -- ultimately forcing a compromise, the addition of a flag and a statue with three soldiers to the Wall. He was an excellent partner and fundraiser. Mathias knew the legislative process. To achieve this effect she chose polished black granite for the walls. However, that posed a problem of how tolocate an individual name. He also said there would be a pause in the air attacks on North Vietnam as the first step to de-escalate and promised America would substantially reduce the present level of hostilities.. Two U.S. helicopter units arrived in Saigon in 1961. The design team and VVMF searched for a way for the names to be sandblasted rather than hand-carved. One needs no artistic education to see this design for what it is, a black trench that scars the Mall. Ho Chi Minh led a communist government in the north (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) with its capital at Hanoi, and a new Republic of South Vietnam was established under President Ngo Dinh Diem, with its capital at Saigon. Lin moved to Washington and immediately became part of an internal struggle for control of the design. On September 30, 1964, the first large-scale antiwar demonstration took place in America, on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley. Ruling out an invasion of North Vietnam assured that a purely military victory would not be possible, a fact that was at odds with many Americans expectations for the war. When I was attending law school, Vietnam veterans were an anomaly among the young single professional set of Washington, so it was something you didnt mention. remembered Doubek. Why were people angry about the Vietnam War memorial? In 1973 a third Vietnam war begana continuation, actuallybetween North and South Vietnam but without significant U.S. involvement. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) advised that was not the caseAmerica had a strong military presence in the Pacific that would serve as a deterrent. 20. 3 (August 2004): 122. A lingering question of the war is what might have happened if Eisenhower and Ho had arranged a meeting; possibly, an accord could have been reached, or possibly Ho was simply seeking to limit American involvement, in order to more easily depose the Diem government. Critics of Lins design proposed that a second work be included on the memorial site, as a solution to the problem of the original memorial design: a figurative bronze statue by Frederick Hart of three soldiers in uniform, which had placed third in the initial competition. Washington, D.C. Aerial view. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. Climbing Hamburger Hill 50 years after the Vietnam War's The Battle of Hamburger Hill was fought May 10-20, 1969, during the Vietnam War (1955-1975). Marita Sturken, The Aesthetics of Absence: Rebuilding Ground Zero, American Ethnologist 31, no. They were unwrapped, number coded, photographed for the record, and prepared for display. Im sure I looked like a deer in the headlights, I was so nervous, Scruggs recalled. Buddhists, who comprised South Vietnams majority, claimed Diem, a Catholic, favored citizens of his religion in distributing aid. Scruggs, Wheeler, and Doubek then scouted the Mall sometimes by bicycle to identify the ideal spot: a stretch of parkland known as Constitution Gardens, located on the National Mall adjacent to the Lincoln Memorial. It just resonated, he explained. Usually it refers to the period when the United States and other members of the SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty Organization) joined the forces with the Republic of South Vietnam to contest communist forces, comprised of South Vietnamese guerrillas and regular-force units, generally known as Viet Cong (VC), and . Learn more about featured topics of the Vietnam War and Vietnam Era. The designs were received and processed in a large warehouse east of Washington. Ike may not have seen the message, but at any rate he was focused on establishing NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) as a wall against additional communist advances in Europe and was intent on securing Frances participation in NATO. Though a congressional investigative committee the previous year had warned that America could find itself slipping into in a morass that would require more and more military participation in Vietnam, Johnson began a steady escalation of the war, hoping to bring it to a quick conclusion. That afternoon, the winning design was selected, said Spreiregen. Another article in the same issue of the Post echoed Wolfes definition of the terms of the debate, commenting that: There is a discordance between the sophisticated wall and the unsophisticated statue. To bring the design into reality would require an architect of record. 2) It applauded feminist efforts. With such an overwhelming response to the competition, logistics became an issue. The Best Answer To The Question Why was the vietnam war memorial so controversial? The design aroused a great deal of controversy, reflecting the lack of resolution of the national conflicts over the war as well as the lack of consensus over what constituted an appropriate memorial at the end of the 20th century. Its detractors perceived it as "a monument to defeat, one that spoke more directly to a nation's guilt than to the honor of the war dead and the veterans," describing it as the "black gash of shame," the "degrading ditch," and a "wailing wall for draft dodgers and New Lefters of the future." 4 Responding to its lack of At the time of the memorials design, many veterans who had been exposed to Agent Orange, a chemical weapon used by the U.S. military as an herbicide and defoliant, still suffered ongoing health problems. How should we remember a war that we "lost"? Ho attempted to contact Eisenhower to discuss Vietnam but received no answer. Adding to Americans disillusionment was the race issue. I just kept thinking to myself how quiet it was, and yet there was an immense feeling of community. Financial costs had risen to $30 billion a year. With the jury selected, the next task was to announce and promote the competition. 4 (Summer 1996): 685. He had spent three months recovering in a hospital before being sent back to fight with rocket-propelled grenade fragments permanently embedded in his body. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial stands as a symbol of America's honor and recognition of the men and women who served and sacrificed their lives in the Vietnam War. As conservatives sought to consolidate their gains following Reagans election, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial controversy presented an opportunity for conservatives to harness both the affective power of the veterans fury and the resulting public outcry on their behalf. In August of 1981, VVMF selected a building company and architecture firm to develop the plans and build Lins design. Following its dedication, Lins memorial quickly became the prototype for American war memorials. The bronze sculpture, depicting three women caring for an injured soldier, recognized the work of the more than 10,000 women who served in Vietnam. Why was the Vietnam women's memorial so significant? Based on a program the British had employed successfully against insurgents in Malaya, it didnt work in Vietnam. There were so many people helping to get the legislation [passed], remembered Healy. The Veterans Administration hospital system was underfunded and ill-equipped to help Vietnam veterans deal with either their physical ailments or the psychological challenges of post-traumatic stress disorder. Earlier, in March 1968, the Americal Division had been involved in what became known as the My Lai Massacre, in which over 100 men, women and children were killed. Furthermore, the extreme visual simplicity of Lins monument made it easy for critics to utilize it in a concurrent debate about the merits of minimalist sculptures as public artworks. Each contestant sealed his or her name in an envelope and taped it to the back of the submission. The whole week was extremely emotional, Becky Scruggs remembered. A s memorials are objects of public commemoration, we demand a lot of them. They serve as testaments to lives lost, as repositories of grief, and to facilitate processes of mourning. Wheeler recruited others to help, starting with a group of professional men, all Vietnam or Vietnam-era veterans: George Sandy Mayo, Arthur Mosley, John Morrison, Paul Haaga, Bill Marr, John Woods and certified public accountant Bob Frank, who agreed to become VVMFs treasurer. With permit in hand, Doubek instructedto commence construction immediately. Daniel Abramson, Maya Lin and the 1960s: Monuments, Time Lines, and Minimalism, Critical Inquiry 22, no. Vietnam has a long history of being ruled by foreign powers, and this led many Vietnamese to see the United States involvement in their country as neo-colonialism. Marinesnear Van Truong, from the VC point of view. Only a few, such as the St. Louis Gateway Arch, part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, had been the result of open competitions. To make his dream a reality, he planned to get support from people as diverse as former anti-war presidential candidate George McGovern and Gen. William Westmoreland, who commanded U.S. forces in Vietnam. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Sturken, 320. With the seed money from several defense industry donors, especially Grumman Aerospace, VVMF launched its first large-scale direct mail campaign to reach out to the public. Four of the eight were themselves veterans of previous wars. Throughout the judging process, one of the judges, Grady Clay, had taken meticulous notes of the jurys discussions. Nonsense. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, located in Washington D.C., is a tribute to the soldiers who served in the Vietnam War. Your donation to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund will help expand our mission to honor, educate and heal. It will be a better memorial if its not entirely understood at first. Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund | 3033 Wilson Blvd, Suite 300 | Arlington VA 22201 | 202.393.0090 The original design proposal called for all of the names to be individually hand-chiseled in the stone, but it was soon realized the time and money it would take to do that were impractical. Originally, Vietnam ended at the 17th parallel, but it gradually conquered all the area southward along the coastline of the South China Sea and west to Cambodia. Lin knew it was critical to maintain the simplicity of the design throughout the design development and construction process. Mathias had grown increasingly concerned about how veterans had been treated on their return. (Woods continues to serve on VVMFs Board of Directors to this day. Just as the American people could be a part of building the Memorial through their contributions and support, they could also have an opportunity to participate in its design. The ceasefire allowed Nixon to declare peace with honor, but no provisions existed for enforcing the terms of the accords. On July 9, 1964, China had announced it would step in if the U.S. attacked North Vietnam, as China had done in the Korean War. Yet, this seemingly god-given shrine wears political feet of clay, and behind it lies a fierce controversy that re-opened the wounds of the war the memorial was designed to heal. Ultimately, the Commission of Fine Arts, which had the final say in the matter, overruled Lins objections. Many veterans, politicians, critics, and the general public read its refusal to explicitly glorify the war or frame the listed soldiers sacrifice in recognizably heroic terms as an ideological statement, proof of Linsand the memorialspurported anti-war position. Population in the south was mostly clustered in a few areas along the coast; the north always enjoyed a larger population. The more people you got to co-sponsor, the more people wanted to join.. News footage showed the fighting in Saigon and Hue. By early 1982, VVMF asked Warner to bring together both sides for a closed-door session to hammer out the issues. Its primary goal was to demoralize the North Vietnamese and diminish their manufacturing and transportation abilities. It was like a Woodstock atmosphere in Washington for those who had served in Vietnam, recalled Scruggs. Omissions? In late spring 1969, American and South . The Vietnam War was an extremely long conflict, lasting from the sending of a group of advisors to aid South Vietnam on November 1, 1955, to the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975. An air war was the most that could be done north of the 17th parallel, because the use of ground troops had been ruled out. Like all stereotypes, this one was unfair. (Some in the North Vietnamese government thought the course of war in the south was unwise, but they were overruled.) This presented the new MACV commander (Military Assistance Command, Vietnam), General William C. Westmoreland with a thorny challenge: how to show the American people progress was being made. They serve as testaments to lives lost, as repositories of grief, and to facilitate processes of mourning. On February 7, 1965, the U.S. Air Force began bombing selected sites in North Vietnam. After three-and-a-half years of nonstop effort and work, with all that you have to do to accomplish what we did, it was beautiful. Jan was a great spokesperson. For weeks, he obsessed about the idea of building a memorial. Unlike previous wars, where only still images or short movie newsreels were available for conveying images, this was Americas first television war. Oooo, not any more, not any more. Every major engagement between U.S. forces and VC or NVA was an American victory, and the casualty (body count) ratio always showed significantly larger casualties for the communist forces than for the Americans. Vietnam Veterans Memorial, also called The Wall, national monument in Washington, D.C., honouring members of the U.S. armed forces who served and died in the Vietnam War (1955-75). Bronze. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could. But, say those opposed, the men represent the women, the men represent all soldiers . For the first time, MACV worked with South Vietnams government to create annual plans. Most importantly, they needed to navigate the channels of government authorizations and approvals. The South Vietnamese Army was showing improvement, winning 37 of their last 45 major engagements. If all of the names could be in one place, these names would have great powera power to heal. Perhaps Lins centralitytwenty years after the construction of the Vietnam Veterans Memorialto the debate over Arads and Walkers design was inevitable, given her presence on the design competitions selection committee as well as her legacy as the definitive memorial builder of the late twentieth century. (Ten times as many Vietnamese had fled the north, where the Communist Party was killing off its rivals, seizing property, and oppressing the large Catholic population.) Both the Army of the Republic of South Vietnam (ARVN) and the VC used torture, to extract information or to cowl opposition. In previous war, progress and setbacks could be shown on maps; large enemy units could be engaged and destroyed. (His son, Marine Corps lance corporal Richard Fitzgibbon III would be killed in action in Vietnam September 7, 1965. This grew into the operation known as Rolling Thunder that began on March 2, 1965, and continued to November 2, 1968. No American air strikes came to aid the overstretched South Vietnamese, despite Nixons earlier assurances to Thieu. The division was supposed to be temporary: elections were to be held in both sections in 1956 to determine the countrys future. The design Lin envisioned listed the names chronologically by date of casualty. Moreover, could it accomplish all of that while listing the approximately 58,000 names in an artistic, meaningful way? He organized the advisors and volunteers into task groups: public relations, financial management, fund raising, legislation, site selection, and design/construction. He cited the growing coalition was a prime example of its not what you know, its who you know. These people, though a small group, were able to reach out to their networks and their extensive contacts to recruit the type of expertise and support required for such a mammoth initiative. When they returned home from serving their country, there was no national show of gratitude. It distributed an instructional booklet communicating its vision to all who registered for the competition.