The Vietnam Veterans Memorial: The memorial comprises three main elements - the Wall of names, the Three Servicemen Statue and flagpole as well as the Vietnam Women's Memorial. The Vietnam War lasted from 1959 to 1975 - the longest military conflict in US history. The Memorial is also not a war memorial; it is to honour those who served in the war, living or dead.
The Wall: This website gives a very good account of how the Wall came about, including the following facts:
- It was designed by an undergraduate at Yale University, Maya Ying Lin, born in Athens, Ohio in 1959. She was only 22 when her design was selected as the winning one in 1981.
- With the addition of three names added in 2007, there are now 58,256 names listed on the Memorial. Approximately 1200 of these are listed as missing (MIAs, POWs, and others).
- The names on the wall made of black granite are listed in chronological order, according to the date of casualty within each day and the names are alphabetised.
- The names were not carved by hand, but by a computerized typesetting process (by Datalantic, Incorporated, Atlanta, Georgia) called photo stencil gritblasting, developed by Larry Century, specifically for the Memorial, in Memphis, Tennessee.
As I walked along the wall and put my hand to the names, I felt a big lump in my throat. Some of those who died barely made it through to their 20s, and I felt sad for the parents who lost their children in a war that some felt they should never have been involved in. Admittedly, the Vietnam War was a very divisive war in the history of the US, but I felt that it also reflected quite a lot of the Americans' view of their role and responsibility in terms of the world. Some might mock them for thinking so highly of themselves as the world's policemen, but I personally think that the world is the better on balance because of US military intervention in certain countries and areas.
The one that got to me was a note that was attached to a US flag placed at the bottom of one of the wall panels - "Your son, Jim lives in the metro-plex area."
"If you are able, save for them a place inside of you and save one backward glance when you are leaving for the places they can no longer go. Be not ashamed to say you loved them, though you may or may not have always. Take what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own. And in that time when men decide and feel safe to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind."
- Major Michael Davis O'Donnell, 1 January 1970, Dak To, Vietnam (listed as killed in action on Feb 7, 1978)
I Hate War
"I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen men coughing out their gassed lungs. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen 200 limping, exhausted men come out of line—the survivors of a regiment of 1,000 that went forward 48 hours before. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt, Chautauqua, New York, 1936
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