Analysis: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, located on the National Mall in Washington, DC, is a poignant tribute to the over 58,000 U.S. servicemen who lost their lives or were reported missing during the Vietnam War. Designed by Maya Lin, a Yale architecture student, the memorial features two black granite walls that intersect at a broad angle, with the names of the fallen inscribed chronologically. Initially controversial due to its unconventional design, which some perceived as an anti-war statement, the memorial has become a respected site of reflection and remembrance, attracting approximately four million visitors annually.
The design encourages personal connection, as visitors often trace the names with their fingers and leave mementos at the base, creating a powerful ritual of remembrance. The polished surface of the granite allows for visitors to see their own reflections alongside the names, enhancing the sense of intimacy and connection to the deceased. Additionally, symbols indicate the status of individuals, with diamonds representing deceased servicemen and plus signs for those missing in action. The memorial not only honors the courage of those who served but also serves as a reminder of the complexities and societal challenges surrounding the Vietnam War and its veterans.
Analysis: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Date: proposed 1981; erected 1982
Author(s): Maya Lin (artist); Jan C. Scruggs (organizer)
Genre: proposal; work of art
Summary Overview
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, today one of the most revered monuments on the National Mall in Washington, DC, was once a very controversial work. Built in 1982 through the efforts of Vietnam War veterans hoping to erect a memorial to their fallen comrades, the design selected at first raised doubts in the minds of veterans groups, the public, and elected officials. Maya Lin, a Yale architectural student who won the design competition with a unanimous vote from the project's governing board, proposed a memorial consisting of two black granite walls containing the names of the dead and intersecting at a broad angle in the middle, while sloping downward to the ground at the edges. Conservatives denounced the design as a misguided political statement—a sort of anti-monument—and demanded a more traditional work consisting of a statue and flagpole. Both “the wall” and the statue were eventually erected, and soon afterward, the controversy dissipated as visitors came to appreciate Lin's unique design and the honor it pays to the dead and missing of the Vietnam War.
Defining Moment
The United States paid a heavy price for its military defense of South Vietnam. More than 58,000 US troops were killed or listed as missing, and some 300,000 were injured. All in all, some 2.7 million Americans served in the country over the course of the conflict, creating a vast pool of returned war veterans needing to adapt to civilian life. Moreover, unlike previous wars when those who had fought on behalf of the United States were welcomed home and granted favored status and access to socioeconomic opportunities, during the Vietnam War, veterans were treated poorly. The war had challenged many Americans' basic beliefs about themselves and their country, including that the United States was a force for good in the world and that there was nothing it could not achieve. With Vietnam, a crisis of conscience arose when it became clear that policymakers and military leaders were capable of faulty decisions and indefensible actions, and that, moreover, we seemed to be losing the battle to a poor, undeveloped country in a far off corner of the world. The war became more and more unpopular as time passed, and as a result, returning veterans were not given the respect they deserved. Indeed, in some cases, they were looked down upon by opponents of the war as tools of a suspect government. More generally, the vets were reminders of a grim episode that many Americans preferred to forget.
Some veterans became activists and sought to turn this picture around. One of them was Jan Scruggs, a moderately disabled Army veteran who obtained a master's degree in psychology after the war, but still had trouble finding a job. Critical of meager government efforts to assist vets in reintegrating into society, and disturbed by the shoddy treatment afforded vets generally, Scruggs developed a view that America's “final recovery” from the war depended on a “national reconciliation.” Further, he suggested that a national monument was needed “to remind an ungrateful nation of what it has done to its sons.”
To that end, Scruggs organized a group of veteran activists who worked to bring a memorial to the National Mall. Contributing $2,800 of his own money to the cause, Scruggs eventually managed to obtain over $8 million in private contributions. In 1980, through a bill sponsored by Senator John Warner of Virginia and Senator Charles Mathias of Maryland, Congress authorized the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, with Scruggs at its head. A panel of eight judges, none of them Vietnam veterans (in order to eliminate bias), was set up to evaluate design proposals submitted as part of an open competition. Four basic rules were established for the memorial: 1) it could make no political statement; 2) it had to fit in with the landscaping of the site; 3) it had to suggest a place of contemplation; and 4) it had to contain the names of the dead and missing. Over 1,400 designs were submitted. When the winning design was announced on May 1, 1981, the name Maya Lin was projected into history as the youngest—and most controversial—artist ever to be granted a spot on the Mall.
Author Biography
Maya Ying Lin was born in Athens, Ohio, in 1959, the daughter of Chinese immigrant parents who taught fine arts and literature at Ohio University. Lin studied at Yale University, where, as an undergraduate, she entered and won the competition for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in 1981. Subsequently, she received a master of architecture degree from Yale and an honorary doctorate from Yale and several other prominent universities. Today, she continues to work as an artist and designer and has a studio in New York City.
Jan Craig Scruggs grew up in Bowie, Maryland, and, during the Vietnam War, served in the US Army's 199th Light Infantry Brigade. After his military service, he received a bachelor's and a master's degree from American University in Washington, DC. He founded a fund to build the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in 1979 and received Congressional authorization for it a year later. Today, Scruggs continues to serve as CEO of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund and speaks about veterans and veterans' affairs.
Document Analysis
The proposal by Lin is remarkable for the degree to which the finished work conforms to the original plan. Oftentimes, artists' and architects' initial conceptions are modified as a project takes shape. The outcome in this case is all the more remarkable given that Lin acknowledged later that she did not know that much about the Vietnam War—she was quite young at the time—yet she did know that it was a divisive conflict that tore at the American social fabric. Thus, she envisioned the memorial as a kind of giant knife cutting a gash into America, creating a “rift in the earth.” At the center of the work are the names of the first servicemembers who lost their lives or went missing during the conflict, while the remainder of the names, as noted in the proposal, proceed chronologically to the right, pick up again at the left edge, and conclude at the center, bringing the list “full circle.” The sequence of names thus functions as a kind of diary of the war, a day-by-day, week-by-week, month-by-month accounting of the fallen. This approach proved to be a powerful one, in practice, because it allowed living veterans to see the names of their dead service mates assembled in one place according to the action in the war, the “battle,” in which they were killed. In fact, “seeing” the names is only part of the story, for what happens in practice, nearly universally, is that visitors put a hand to the name and rub their fingers over the incised letters. The act becomes a powerful reminder of the physical person—the friend or loved one—now gone from the visitor's lives.
Lin notes that the polished black granite walls, set, as they are, into the ground, are meant to act as a sound barrier, creating an aura of privacy and allowing for contemplation. And, indeed, even with some 4 million visitors per year—one of the highest visitation rates in the Capitol—the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is often considered a special place by visitors because of the aura of quiet reverence that surrounds it. The formidable black granite wall serves as a kind of permanent barrier between the dead and the living, the earth below and the surface above. Lin does not mention this in her proposal, but the highly polished surface of the granite permits the visitor to see a reflection of him- or herself facing the wall and viewing/touching the names. This effect generally adds to the intimacy of the space, the uniqueness of the moment, and emphasizes the boundary separating the visitor from the deceased.
Besides touching the names, another ritual that developed soon after the monument was erected was that of leaving a memento below the name of a friend or loved one. Over the years the National Park Service, which oversees maintenance of the monument, has collected thousands of these mementos, ranging from combat boots and love letters to cigarette lighters and children's drawings. A further detail that was added to the monument during final deliberations was the use of a small diamond symbol next to a name to indicate “deceased” status, and a small plus symbol to indicate “missing in action.” Upon confirmation of death—for example, through the identification of recovered remains—the plus sign is converted to a diamond. Lin also notes that the eastern wall points to the Washington Monument and the western wall to the Lincoln Memorial. This visual effect, however, is less commented on by visitors than are other aspects of the memorial; nonetheless, it is appreciated when pointed out.
Bibliography and Additional Reading
“History of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.” Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, 2015. Web. <http://www.vvmf.org/the-memorial-history>.
Lin, Maya. “Making the Memorial.” New York Review of Books. NYREV, Inc., 2 Nov. 2000. Web. <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2000/nov/02/making-the-memorial/>.
Nicosia, Gerald. Home to War: A History of the Vietnam Veterans Movement. New York: Crown Publishers, 2001. Print.
Piehler, G. Kurt. Remembering War the American Way. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2004. Print.
Scruggs, Jan C., & Joel L. Swerdlow. To Heal a Nation: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial. New York: Harper & Row, 1985. Print.