Vietnam Veterans Day
On Vietnam Veterans Day my thoughts turn to those who didn’t come home. I had many close friends and fellow Marines among the over 58,00 who fell in combat over the course of that war. The story of the Vietnam War Memorial, honoring those dead. seems appropriate for the day.
In March 1979, Jan Scruggs, then a low-ranking Labor Department employee, conceived the idea of a memorial to recognize Vietnam veterans for their service and to honor those that did not come home from the war. He began talking to veteran groups, Congressmen, and the press. He attracted a core of supporters dedicated to building a monument beside the Lincoln Memorial, funded entirely by private donations. Before ground-breaking in 1982, the group raised more than nine million dollars in small donations from six hundred fifty thousand contributors.
From start to finish, the project to build a memorial to the Vietnam War generated controversy. The anti-war protesters vehemently opposed anything that might glorify the war. Within the veteran community itself there were disagreements on the purpose and design of the memorial. Finally, a panel of well-known artists and designers was appointed to select a design from more than fourteen hundred proposals. Amazingly, the panel was unanimous in choosing the work of a twenty-one-year-old Yale undergraduate named Maya Ying Lin. Describing her concept, a New York Times editorial commented:
“The V-shaped, black granite lines merging gently with the sloping earth make the winning design seem a lasting and appropriate image of dignity and sadness. It conveys the only point about the war on which people may agree: that those who died should be remembered.”
The opening ceremony and celebration was held in November 1982, with more than one hundred thousand veterans coming together for the event. It was only then that the full effect of the memorial was revealed. The black granite wall seemed to go on forever. The polished panels displayed more than fifty-eight thousand names in chronological order of death, as well as the reflection of the viewer—drawing each observer deep into the panels. As Maya Lin had conceived it, the wall created a thin boundary that narrowly separated the living and the dead. The Wall soon became more than a memorial to deceased servicemen. One journalist said,
“Veneration occasionally imparts something more to a hallowed site: a spiritual dimension that transforms it into something like a sacred shrine, where pilgrims come and devotions are paid.”
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial has truly become a national shrine. Hundreds of thousands of visitors leave behind an amazing collection of letters, poems, flowers, military medals, and other personal items, trying to bridge the chasm to lost loved ones. Dedicating the memorial, Air Force chaplain Owen Hendry prayed,
“Your presence is felt in this place as a mighty wind, O God, echoing again the words once spoken by your prophet Isaiah, ‘I have called you by name, you are mine.’ Keep them close to you, O God, in your eternal peace.”
(This story is taken from my book Stories of Faith and Courage from the Vietnam War. Attribution for the quotes are given in the book)
