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American drawdown continued, with only 43,000 personnel left in-country by mid-August. They set their sights in support of the clear, simple vision Scruggs outlined:to honor the warrior and not the war. North Vietnam But can America truly mean that we should feel honored by that black pit?6. He was in Vietnam, serving in the 199th Light Infantry Brigade. When VVMF announced the selection of Lins design, the initial public reaction was generally positive. In the Rose Garden of the White House, immediately following President Jimmy Carters signing of the bill, Scruggs explained to the press the vision of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF), the non-profit organization that collected and administered the funds for the memorial. Ibid. The number of parties who claimed direct investmentwhether emotional, psychological, or financialin the site and its future form and use only made the issue more complex and difficult to resolve. Michael Clark, Remembering Vietnam, Cultural Critique 3 (Spring 1986): 50. The names of the eight women who died in Vietnam are included on the list of over 58,000 names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The Three Soldiers. Despite the stated wishes of the VVMF, Lins design proved instantaneously divisive. The first fundraising letter was signed by Bob Hope. The Salute opened with a vigil Wednesday morning at the National Cathedral, where all of the nearly 58,000 names on The Wall were read by volunteers around the clock, day and night, through midnight Friday. On January 21, 1970, Jan Scruggs was having his morning cup of coffee, but he was far from his kitchen table at home. He also wanted to find a way to help them heal and suggested that the country build a national memorial as a symbol that the country cared about them. Among South Vietnams other allies, Australia had over 400 killed and 2,400 wounded; New Zealand, over 80 KIA; Republic of Korea, 4,400 KIA; and Thailand 350 killed. Thus, it is unsurprising that the first skirmish of the culture wars of the 1980s can be traced back to the public debate that broke out in reaction to Maya Lins design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. 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. On the other hand, Congress had never declared war and so the president was limited in what he could do in Southeast Asia. The list of tasks to achieve such a goal seemed endless. And if they themselves didnt know how to help, they knew someone who did. 400,000 1 million military The designs were received and processed in a large warehouse east of Washington. First Inaugural Address (January 20, 1981), Ronald Wilson Reagan, Miller Center For Public Affairs, University of Virginia, accessed April 21, 2011, https://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3407. Because of this, Mathias appointed her to manage the details and to work with Scruggs, Doubek, and Wheeler on the legislation for the memorial. Names of all who died in the war or . Together with Spreiregen, he composed a report based on these thoughtful comments. But if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? Experience the evolution of the Vietnam Wall controversy by reading through a chronological list of documents divided into five rounds: Vietnam veteran Jan Scruggs initiates a hard-fought battle to build a Vietnam War Memorial, finally convincing Congress to appropriate land for a memorial that would be built with public funds. He also found that those veterans whose units experienced high casualty rates were experiencing higher divorce rates and a greater frequency of combat-related dreams. 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. Peter Walker and Michael Arad. Similarly, casualty totals among the VC and NVA and the number of dead and wounded civilians in North Vietnam cannot be determined exactly. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. Veterans frequently found themselves denying their time in Vietnam, never mentioning their service to new friends and acquaintances for fear of the reactions it might elicit. Jan Scruggss and VVMF members desire for a memorial that would heal the social rifts wrought by the war was wishful thinking. And that message got through to me.. Mathias and Warner continued to rally support and ferry the legislation. Larry Century, a young inventor from Cleveland, Ohio,was selected to serve as a consultant to Binswanger Glass Company in Memphis, Tennessee, which was awarded the contract for inscribing the names. They complained about the walls being black. Sturken, 322. They felt it was a slap in the face to those who had served because it did not contain traditional symbols honoring service, courage, and sacrifice. The Three Soldiers, 198284. Sturken, 322; Anne Swartz, American Art After September 11: A Consideration of the Twin Towers, Symploke 14, nos. The National Review commented, The mode of listing the names makes them individual deaths, not deaths in a cause; they might as well have been traffic accidents. Similarly, the New Republic opined: It is an unfortunate choice of memorial. I have a Master's degree in military history from King's College, London and my cornucopia of interests include: World War II, World War II, and World War II. They were the only father-son pair to die in Vietnam.) To treat the Vietnam dead like the victims of some monstrous traffic accident is more than a disservice to history; it is a disservice to the memory of the 57,000.5. It distributed an instructional booklet communicating its vision to all who registered for the competition. Maya Lin worked closely with Cooper-Lecky on all aesthetic aspects of the design. We expect them to do the work of history writing, to draw single comprehensible narratives out of a Gorgon's nest of individual, often contradictory, experiences. As Scruggs had always envisioned, the Memorial would feature all of the names of those who had died. The Vietnam War was the longest in U.S. history until the Afghanistan War (20012021). We had to build credibility among the design community, but also build credibility with the veterans, said Woods. With such an overwhelming response to the competition, logistics became an issue. They did not like the idea that it was below ground level. 3. Daniel Libeskind. It seemed unconscionable that heor anyone elseshould be allowed to forget. Our country needed something symbolic to help heal our wounds.. Ultimately, the VVMF Board agreed on a jury of the most experienced and prestigious artists and designers that could be found, since it took a mature eye to envision from two-dimensional renderings how a design would look when built. Why were people angry about the Vietnam War memorial? Additionally, the emergence of Park51the proposed Muslim community and cultural center to be located a few blocks from the former World Trade Center siteas a major point of public interest and debate, which peaked during the 2010 congressional elections, confirms the continued political potency and cultural power of memorials as embodiments of representational practice. The selected design then had to go through Federal agency approval and development into finished plans. An article by Hugh Sidey in the February 22, 1982, issue ofTIMEmagazine described the session: A few days ago, 40 supporters and critics of the memorial gathered to try to break the impasse that threatened the memorial because of such features as the black color of the stone and its position below ground level. The truth was, veterans were no more likely to be addicted to drugs than those who did not serve. Many people will not comprehend this design until they experience it. That same month, Kennedy himself was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Following a march by thousands of veterans through the streets of Washington, D.C., to the National Mall site, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 13, 1982. By the time the compromise statue is dedicated, a move for the addition of a women's memorial is already underway. Cambodia Not only was Harts statue included at the memorial site, but a flagpole was added as well. The Memorials walls point to the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial, thus bringing the Memorial into the historical context of our country. Traumatic memoriessuch as those of police officers brutally beating anti-war protesters at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago and members of the National Guard opening fire on students protesting the war at Kent State University in Ohiowere removed, like a tumor, from the body of the nation and assigned to another geographical location: Vietnam. A few preliminary concepts were embraced. The entire text size and layout Lin saw as an open book. Most importantly, they needed to navigate the channels of government authorizations and approvals. General Westmoreland had been promoted to Army Chief of Staff and replaced in Vietnam by Gen. Creighton Abrams. 2. Within months after he recovered from his wounds and returned to his unit, the American public was learning the details of the events at My Lai. Consequently, by the time of the memorials design and construction, veterans had built up a significant amount of moral outrage and found their outlet in the controversy over the memorial. ), For three solid months, Spreiregen, Mosley, Woods, and Doubek planned the competition. On January 27, 1973, peace accords were signed between North Vietnam and the U.S. In August of 1981, VVMF selected a building company and architecture firm to develop the plans and build Lins design. Ho Chi Minh had been educated in Paris. In March 1979, inspired by the Hollywood film The Deer Hunter, Scruggs launched a personal crusade to raise funds for a memorial that would pay tribute to the soldiers who had lost their lives in the war. It was a direct result of the First Indochina War (19461954) between France, which claimed Vietnam as a colony, and the communist forces then known as Viet Minh. No government funds would be necessary. Selecting a design that would meet the criteria demanded a jury that could grasp the significance of the Memorials purpose and understand the unique needs of Vietnam veterans, their families, and a country divided. Today, The Wall continues to be the most-visited memorial on the National Mall, attracting more than five million people each year. The design competition also needed to be able to attract design competitors.. On April 27, 1979, Doubek incorporated the fledgling entity, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, and Scruggs asked him to be an officer and director. The flag-waving crowds even cheered., Over the four days there were also workshops, parties, events, and reunions. In the nine months since hed been in-country, Scruggs had already seen a lot of action and had been wounded in a battle near Xuan Loc. It was such a great cause, and they were bound and determined to make it happen.. 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. Then, in October 1980, veteran and lawyer Tom Carhart, also a former supporter, testified before the Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) against the design, saying that One needs no artistic education to see this design for what it is, a black trench that scars the Mall. The battle was suddenly over.. Vietnam veteran Joseph Zengerle, then an Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, volunteered the use of an aircraft hangar at Andrews Air Force Base. Washington, D.C. As memorials are objects of public commemoration, we demand a lot of them. They treated the moms the same as they treated the vets. In the early 20th century, Vietnamese nationalism began to rise, clashing with the French colonial rulers. Direct mail was proving to be a highly effective fundraising tool. The earliest of these battles was the controversy over Lins design. Dana Joy Helwick explains how, and why, she uses contemporary artists as role models in her classroom. They stressed that all funds for the Memorial would be raised from private donations. Others: 80,000 plus, 200,000400,000 civilians Corrections? While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. The winning designwas the work of Maya Ying Lin of Athens, Ohio, a 21-year-old senior at Yale University. When Lin asked how many Smiths would be on The Wall, the team realized how important the chronological listing was to the design. This would be a war without a front or a rear; it would involve full-scale combat units and individuals carrying out terrorist activities such as the Brink Hotel bombing. Some 80,000 Vietnamese from the south had moved to the north after the Geneva Agreements were signed. The women soldiers the nurses suffered too. How were Vietnam veterans treated when they returned from the war? Medals, toys, flowers, photographsanything and everything is left at The Wall as family and friends seek to remember their loved ones who made the ultimate sacrifice in Vietnam. With the jury selected, the next task was to announce and promote the competition. The solution on how to locate a name evolved into a directory of names with an alphabetical listing andthe panel and line number of each name. (An American medic treated him during World War II, probably saving his life.) This message of personal responsibility, in contrast to governance by an elite group on behalf of individuals, became a hallmark of the Reagan administration. The first phase encompassed the detail planning and preparations for holding the competition, said Spreiregen. Veterans needed this, and so did the nation. Corruption and instability in South Vietnams government did not instill confidence in its people, or in the Americans working with it. 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. The body count policy fell into disfavor and was not employed in future American wars; in Vietnam it led officers to inflate enemy casualties. With the introduction of legislation, the VVMF leaders realized that it was time to transition from a volunteer committee and to open a staffed office. Maya Lin, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 198182. It was decided that VVMF would hold a design competition, open to any American citizen over 18 years of age. 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. By the end of the first afternoon, one of the jurors, Harry Weese, returned to our impromptu conference lounge and told me, Paul, there are two designs out there that could do it.. Karal Ann Marling and Robert Silberman, The Statue Near the Wall: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Art of Remembering, Smithsonian Studies in American Art 1, no. Scruggs would never forget the awful scene. In the Shadow of the Washington Monument. It would be a way to honor the veterans and to help themand the countryheal. When Scruggs went to see the movie in early 1979, it wasnt the graphic war scenes that haunted him. To Heal a Nation, a book written by Jan Scruggs and Joel Swerdlow about the creation of the Memorial, provides a vivid sketch of the scene: I have heard your arguments, said General Price. The choice of the lettering style Optima, designed by Hermann Zapf was a font Lin selected after considering a multitude of options.The font Optima seemed to fit that desire to match an almost printed quality with a hand-cut feel. 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. 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). Could a memorial accomplish such an enormous and daunting task? 5. On the off chance that military and political analysts are right, in the next few months we must test the enemys intentions, in case this is indeed his last big gasp before negotiations. And Congress had declared a Vietnam Veterans Week for that April to honor those who had returned home. Two nights later, Maddox and the destroyer USS Turner Joy were on patrol in the Gulf and reported they were under attack. The Vietnam War was a divisive and politically polemic war. As soon as the design was chosen,the next step was to consider the all-important details of getting it built. It was like a Woodstock atmosphere in Washington for those who had served in Vietnam, recalled Scruggs. On September 30, 1964, the first large-scale antiwar demonstration took place in America, on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley. Furthermore, he explicitly framed his interpretation of the memorial in (perceived) opposition to an explicitly artistic perspective. American involvement began to escalate under President John F. Kennedys administration (January 1961November 1963). The photo of the South Vietnamese police chief, for example, cannot by itself explain he had just seen the dead body of a close friend minutes before; even Eddie Adams, the photojournalist who snapped the photo felt it unfairly maligned Lt. Col. Loan. The timing and scale of the offensive caught ARVN, the U.S. and other SEATO troops by surprise, however. 1) it commemorated an unpopular war. Because he possessed great knowledge of history, he understood the extensive healing process required after war. The U.S., which had been gradually exerting influence after the departure of the French government, backed Diem in order to limit the area under communist control. End-to-end, the total number of submissions would have stretched one and one third linear miles. I heard that those present agreed to double their contributions after Taylor completed her remarks, Scruggs said. Why Were Vietnam War Vets Treated Poorly When They . 170,000220,000 military The ceasefire allowed Nixon to declare peace with honor, but no provisions existed for enforcing the terms of the accords. During President Dwight Eisenhowers administration (19531961), financial aid was given to pay South Vietnams military forces and American advisors were sent to help train them. When the 18-year-old Scruggs volunteered to enlist in the Army in 1968, debate surrounding Vietnam was escalating. The peasants resented being forced from their ancestral lands, and consolidating them gave the VC better targets. Their motto is: Honor the dead by serving the living. Volunteering to assist VVMF was an ideal opportunity for Cupp to do just that. He could still picture the faces of his 12 buddies, but the passing years were making it harder and harder to remember their names. These mass-media fictions enabled the very real neglect of veterans by the institutions tasked with tending to their needs. In the end, the quarry in India was selected. Washington, D.C. Aerial view. Images of fighting, of dead and wounded soldiers, of POWs held in North Vietnam were beamed into Americas living rooms night after night, as was footage of hundreds, sometimes thousands of antiwar protestors marching through the streets. They werent nice. Some antiwar protestors blamed the men and women who served in Vietnam, taunting them and spitting on them when they came home. American intelligence knew an attack was coming, though the Army had downplayed a New York Times report of large communist troop movements heading south. The jurors began by touring the site and then returned to Hangar #3 at Andrews to view each of the 1,421 designs individually. The ARVN bent but did not break. By 1979, the country was beginning to have more positive feelings toward Vietnam veterans. Civilian loss of life was also very heavy, with the lowest estimates around 415,000. It was a whirlwind of events, and the press coverage was unbelievable. (Some in the North Vietnamese government thought the course of war in the south was unwise, but they were overruled.) The Inspiration. In November 2003, the LMDC placed the proposals of the eight finalists on display for public review.16 According to Sturken and art historian Anne Swartz, criticism of the designs, including that of the eventual winner, Peter Walkers and Michael Arads Reflecting Absence, revolved in large part around their perceived minimalist aesthetic, once again drawing on the rhetoric involved in the Tilted Arc debate. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. (Credit: In Pictures Ltd./Corbis via Getty Images) . Buddhists, who comprised South Vietnams majority, claimed Diem, a Catholic, favored citizens of his religion in distributing aid. to the memorial, as well as the rituals that take place there and what role the memorial may be playing in the construction of a his-tory of the Vietnam War.8 Beyond the academic discourse, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial has also in-spired a considerable popular literature. It will be a better memorial if its not entirely understood at first. They came from all parts of the country and represented every state. Instead they found bitterness and discontent and they were often disliked by the public. The design team and VVMF searched for a way for the names to be sandblasted rather than hand-carved. When the veterans began to return home they were greeted not with cheers and shouts of joy that soldiers met when they came home from WW2. Sturken, 320. We do not seek to make any statement about the correctness of the war, Scruggs said. They needed to secure a plot of land, raise funds and public awareness, design the Memorial, coordinate construction, and organize the dedication ceremonies. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. It was a direct result of the First Indochina War (1946-1954) between France, which claimed Vietnam as a colony, and the communist forces then known as Viet Minh. The public wanted to have a hand in helping to build the Memorial and in honoring the warrior, not the war. No American air strikes came to aid the overstretched South Vietnamese, despite Nixons earlier assurances to Thieu. Rather, by honoring those who sacrificed, we hope to provide a symbol of national unity and reconciliation.1. "The veterans were asking me, 'What do you think people are going to do when they first come here?'" Lin recalls. His reasoning was that a complete mess would make it tough to stop construction. The senior staffers were against it. Some felt that the money to build a memorial could be better spent delivering the many services veterans needed.