The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC
Wall Engraved with 58,000 Names Provides An Overwhelming Experience
Sep 15, 2007
According to the Vietnam Veterans Memrial Fund (VVMW) website, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. was built with more than $8 million in contributions from 275,000 individuals. Since 1982 it has been visited by millions of men, women and children, many of whom are emotionally overcome by the simple V-shaped granite wall engraved with the names of over 58,000 Americans who were killed in the war or are still listed as missing in action.
The Vietnam Wall is located in the National Mall & Memorial Parks between Congress and the White House and shares the park with monuments to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Korean War veterans.
The memorial was the idea of Jan Scruggs, a corporal in the U.S. Army’s 199th Light Infantry Brigade from Bowie, Maryland. He served one year in Vietnam, was wounded, decorated for bravery and returned home with lingering memories of comrades who died in action.
Jan Scrugs Motivated by Movie "Deer Hunter"
In 1979, after seeing the Vietnam movie "Deer Hunter" and doing graduate school research on Vietnam veterans, he became determined to build a monument to the Americans who died in Vietnam.
He met with a group of veterans in Washington, D.C. and established the VVMF, launching it with his own $2,800. Their effort started slowly and was even ridiculed on network television a couple of times.
U.S. Sen. John Warner Contribution
But they persisted, collecting gifts of $5 and $10 and eventually a $5,000 personal contribution from U. S. Sen. John Warner of Virginia. Warner also helped raise another $50,000.
Scruggs also appeared before a Congressional committee to request two acres for the memorial on the National Mall, near the Lincoln Monument. The bill later passed the full Senate in seven minutes and President Jimmy Carter signed it into law on July 1, 1980.
The VVMF conducted a design competition in which the entries were identified by number rather than by name. It was won by Maya Lin, a 21-year-old Chinese American student at Yale. VVMF then awarded contracts and supervised construction of The Wall of names, which was dedicated on November 13, 1982.
The names of more than 58,000 men and women, including more than 1,000 still listed as missing in action, are etched on the black granite panels that compose the Wall. The names are listed by year in the order in which they were reported killed or missing. The dead are designated by a diamond, the missing by a plus placed next to the name.
Vietnam Women’s Memorial
The site also includes the Three Servicemen Statue and Flagpole and the Vietnam Women's Memorial.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial responded to a need for America to heal the political wounds suffered during one of its most controversial wars and to focus on the Americans who gave their lives in it. Lin said she kept the design "elegantly simple" to "allow everyone to respond and remember." Like the war, the design was initially controversial, but has since been acclaimed.
Countless veterans, relatives and friends have been observed crying at the Wall as they searched the names.
The National Park Service and VVMF now conduct ceremonies at the memorial on Memorial Day and Veterans Day. They also work together to maintain the memorial and to update the Wall list with names of additional Americans who are determined to have died as a result of their service during the Vietnam War.
