By early 1980, contributions started to arrive. We had to build credibility among the design community, but also build credibility with the veterans, said Woods. 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. Why was the memorial so controversial? He had studied the work of psychiatrist Carl Jung, a student of Sigmund Freud, who wrote of shared societal values. The jury evaluation took place over five days, from April 27 through May 1, 1981. They came from veterans and from the neighbors, teachers, coaches and friends of veterans. It seemed every time they contacted someone, they were greeted with enthusiasm for the idea. They struck at least 30 provincial capitals and the major cities of Saigon and Hue. Descriptions of the desired qualities for the memorial design included harmonious, contemplative and reflective, and again, conciliatory.2 The booklet concluded with the following passage: Finally, we wish to repeat that the memorial is not to be a political statement, and that its purpose is to honor the service and memory of the wars dead, its missing, and its veteransnot the war itself. A Space of Loss: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial - JSTOR Dana Joy Helwick explains how, and why, she uses contemporary artists as role models in her classroom. Following its dedication, Lins memorial quickly became the prototype for American war memorials. The Vietnam War was the longest in U.S. history until the Afghanistan War (20012021). When Lin asked how many Smiths would be on The Wall, the team realized how important the chronological listing was to the design. The first phase encompassed the detail planning and preparations for holding the competition, said Spreiregen. Compounding the pain was that societys ill treatment of the veterans extended to their families. Ultimately, one of the greatest challenges was how to get that many names on the wall panels in such a short period of time. With the jury selected, the next task was to announce and promote the competition. Vietnam veterans memorial controversy. Vietnam War Memorial It was designed by American architect Maya Lin. The Selective Service System during the Vietnam war was highly controversial, especially because early in the war draftees came disproportionately from poor, working-class, rural, and minority populations. He organized the advisors and volunteers into task groups: public relations, financial management, fund raising, legislation, site selection, and design/construction. On Saturday, a grand parade took place where veterans marched joyously out of sync, some hand-in-hand or with their arms draped around one another, holding banners, flags, and signs. 4 (Summer 1996): 685. Warner, who had served as Secretary of the Navy during the war, was himself a veteran of World War II and the Korean War. Im the News & Social Editor at HistoryNet and a World War II researcher with an unparalleled affinity for Sir Winston Churchill, Spitfires, and Michigan football. Hanoi offered to restart peace talks, yet remained intransigent in its demands. To make his dream a reality, he planned to get support from people as diverse as former anti-war presidential candidate George McGovern and Gen. William Westmoreland, who commanded U.S. forces in Vietnam. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. North Vietnamese officers, after the war, said the only thing they feared was an American-led invasion of the north, but the U.S. was not going to risk starting World War III, and at the time that seemed to loom as a distinct possibility. 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. Shortly after the dedication of the land for the memorial, the VVMF announced an open competition for designs for the memorial itself. The controversial Vietnam War was long and drawn out, fought in a humid terrain alien to American soldiers. That afternoon, the winning design was selected, said Spreiregen. CBS evening news anchor Walter Cronkite returned to Vietnam to see for himself what was happening. 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. The In Memory plaque, dedicated in 2004, is near The Three Servicemen and honors the men and women who died as a result of their service in Vietnam. It ended with communist victory in April 1975. Many had worked together, some in Washington. After listening for a while, Brigadier General George Price, a retired veteran of Korea and Vietnam, stood in quiet rage and said, I am sick and tired of calling black a color of shame. General Price, one of Americas highest-ranking black officers lived with and advised the 1st Vietnamese Infantry Division. Scruggs and Doubek met with Mathias to outline their plans. Reflecting Absence (planned design for memorial to victims of attacks on the World Trade Center, September 11, 2001). Many felt it should be composed primarily of veterans; others felt it should be made up only of professionals; some thought a mix of the two would be best. Initially the (Senators) staff was split, recalled Monica Healy, a long-time Mathias aide, on whether Mathias should take the lead and support the efforts to build the Memorial. Confused times need simple forms., According to the description of the design concept: The jury chose a design which will stimulate thought rather than contain it.. Over 500,000 wounded, Explore articles from the HistoryNet archives about Vietnam War. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. In July 1980, Congress passed a bill authorizing three acres on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to serve as the memorial site. Because he possessed great knowledge of history, he understood the extensive healing process required after war. United States: 540,000 Ms Lin arrived at a design solution to note those that were MIA with a symbol()that could be altered if the service member was found. In the end, the quarry in India was selected. 18. But the meeting gave Scruggs his first ally: former Air Force intelligence officer and attorney Robert Doubek, who thought a memorial was a good idea. It's the most-visited memorial on the National Mall in Washington, attracting more than 5 million people each year - the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. By now, we are so accustomed to its visual rhetoricthe polished black granite, the lists of names, the horizontal positioningthat to think of these components as anything but standard practice takes an act of real imagination. Scruggs and Doubek began having regular meetings with John P. Wheeler, a graduate of West Point and Harvard Business School. Wheeler suggested that it should be a landscaped solution: a peaceful, park-like setting that could exist harmoniously with the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. Their military experience meant they had contacts far and wide, at all levels of all professions, within government and the private sector. His research had proven that post-traumatic stress was real and had shone a light on the challenges faced by a significant number of military veterans. 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. Daniel Libeskind. 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. It would help veterans heal. They stressed that all funds for the Memorial would be raised from private donations. Scruggs took a bold step in contacting Virginia Senator John Warner. Everyone wanted to join the effort. William Jayne, who had been wounded in Vietnam, volunteered to head up public relations activities. Photo by William Bill Lecky. Mathias and Warner continued to rally support and ferry the legislation. Some 80,000 Vietnamese from the south had moved to the north after the Geneva Agreements were signed. And Congress had declared a Vietnam Veterans Week for that April to honor those who had returned home. In the Shadow of the Washington Monument. Just, Why was the vietnam war memorial so controversial? In the early 20th century, Vietnamese nationalism began to rise, clashing with the French colonial rulers. The jury included: architects Pietro Belluschi and Harry Weese; landscape architects Hideo Sasaki and Garrett Eckbo; sculptors Costantino Nivola, Richard Hunt, and James Rosati; and Grady Clay, a journalist and editor of Landscape Architecture magazine. For the first time, MACV worked with South Vietnams government to create annual plans. These mass-media fictions enabled the very real neglect of veterans by the institutions tasked with tending to their needs. The battle was suddenly over.. The Vietnam War is the commonly used name for the Second Indochina War, 19541975. 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. . The design competition also needed to be able to attract design competitors.. When the time came, however, Diem resisted the elections; the more populous north would certainly win. Once Scruggs decided to build the memorial, the next step was to get some people behind him. I heard there was a group of serious veterans, not just people getting together to have a beer in the evening, but a group that was serious about getting together to address the problems of the veterans.. 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. Vietnam Veterans Memorial - Washington DC Each contestant sealed his or her name in an envelope and taped it to the back of the submission. Vietnam veteran Jan Scruggs, the individual to first pitch the idea of a memorial, used $2,800 of his own money to begin the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund in 1979, according to History. Overview Military conscription, commonly known as "the draft," is one of the most complex topics related to the Vietnam War. But if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? 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. He would never forget those friends. He was an excellent partner and fundraiser. Mathias knew the legislative process. (An American medic treated him during World War II, probably saving his life.) Lower Manhattan must not be transformed into a vast mausoleum, obviously, but neither must it be transformed into a theme park for advanced architectural taste.15, Such rhetoric spilled over from the initial debates surrounding the redevelopment of the site of the Twin Towers to those regarding the design for the memorial. The administration was caught by surprise, however, when Diem was murdered during the coup, which was led by General Duong Van Minh. They were feeling alienated from the nations leaders, and they had low self-esteem. There is considerable debate over whether he was primarily nationalist or communist, but he was not especially anti-Western. We had been friends for a long time, Mathias said. It was one of the most resounding defeats in all of military historyuntil it became a victory. Warner, at the time married to Elizabeth Taylor, had strong connections to both Hollywood and the corporate world. The National Park Service archives most of the nonperishable items left at The Wall. History of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Because the U.S. failed to achieve a military victory and the Republic of South Vietnam was ultimately taken over by North Vietnam, the Vietnam experience became known as the only war America ever lost. It remains a very controversial topic that continues to affect political and military decisions today. The location secured, the seemingly uncontroversial process of articulating goals for a memorial and staging a competition draws over 1100 entries then the largest such design competition in the United States and the winner is Maya Lin's "Wall. The NVA had to take over. North and South Vietnam were combined into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1976. 1. "The veterans were asking me, 'What do you think people are going to do when they first come here?'" Lin recalls. Waiting meant they would never reach their dedication deadline of November 11, 1982. But the slogan has proved remarkably effective and points to a deep truth: forever is a very short time in democratic politics, writes Philip Collins. 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. Video: But can America truly mean that we should feel honored by that black pit?6. They serve as testaments to lives lost, as repositories of grief, and to facilitate processes of mourning. Scruggs was raised in a rural Maryland town between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. His mother was a waitress; his father a milkman. It would have power for individual veterans, but collectively, they would have even greater power to show the enormity of the sacrifices that were made.. American drawdown continued, with only 43,000 personnel left in-country by mid-August. A cadre was drawn from those who went north; they were trained, equipped and sent back to the south to aid in organizing and guiding the insurgency. The idea for a memorial seemed like a natural extension of his work and his growing desire to find a way to help veterans. Both sides were fighting a war of attrition, so communist commanders sent Hanoi battle reports that often were pure fantasy. The Draft - Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund VVMFagreed to the statue compromise, as well as to adding a flag and to reviewing the inscription on the Memorial, but they did not want to wait untila statue was designed before breaking ground. American involvement began to escalate under President John F. Kennedys administration (January 1961November 1963). Why was Lin's Vietnam Veterans Memorial initially controversial? New York Close Up artist Dan Herschlein, and professor, Chad Laird, discuss the intersection of contemporary art, film and horror. It was World War II and her family lived in Nam Dinh, an industrial city and military target on the north coast of Vietnam. Their initial timeline was aggressive, with an ultimate goal of dedicating the Memorial on Veterans Day 1982just a little more than 36 months away. Success was measured in body count. It was to be a war of attrition and statistics, a policy that suited Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who distrusted the military and often bypassed the Joint Chiefs of Staff in issuing directives. 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. North Vietnam Jan came to our headquarters to see if we had any room to help them get started, Cupp remembered. A s memorials are objects of public commemoration, we demand a lot of them. Why Were Vietnam War Vets Treated Poorly When They . Antiwar protests continued across America and in many other countries, but on April 28, 1967, Gen. Westmoreland became the first battlefield commander ever to address a joint session of Congress in wartime, and Time magazine named him Man of the Year. The Memorial had several purposes, he explained. Carhart equated artists and their defenders with individuals who engaged in acts of aggression against returned soldiers, and who were thus correlated with the entirety of the anti-war movement. 170,000220,000 military But several weeks after the announcement, a handful of people began to protest the design. Security was improving even as American forces were in the process of withdrawing. American Artist discusses science fiction in the context of contemporary art and the concept of Colored Time.. 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. It was becoming apparent that we had been able to be instruments to something far greater than anything we had ever imagined.. In December Doubek became the Executive Director, working on a half-time basis for the first few months, and opened the VVMF office on January 2, 1980. With the site approved, VVMF scrambled to address the issues of what the Memorial would look like and who would design it. In accordance with the strict competition guidelines, anonymity of all designs was carefully observed. They found that they were very real people who did many of the same things they did, recalled Spreiregen. American troops had won every major battle they fought, and General Nguyen Van Thieu had come to power in South Vietnam in September; he would remain in office until 1975, bringing a new measure of stability to the government, though he could not end its endemic corruption. Private Funding No government funds were used to build the memorial, only public land. VVMF met the prospective jurors and scrutinized their credentials. The memorial was built to honor that spirit and the sacrifice of so many who gave everything they had to give. Maya Lin, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 198182. He could still picture the faces of his 12 buddies, but the passing years were making it harder and harder to remember their names. Mathias set up a meeting so he could learn more. They were also keenly aware that the legislation made the Memorials design subject to the approval of the Commission of Fine Arts (CFA), the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC), and the Secretary of the Interior. The VC was effectively finished; it would not field more than 25,00040,000 troops at any time for the remainder of the war. The Vietnam War Starts In 1954, following the defeat of the French colonialists at the hands of the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu, the last battle of the First Indochina War, the country of. North Vietnam, had by then established a presence in Laos and developed the Ho Chi Minh Trail through that country in order to resupply and reinforce its forces in South Vietnam. It was decided that VVMF would hold a design competition, open to any American citizen over 18 years of age. In less than two weeks, these strategic bombers had shattered the norths defenses. 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. History of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial - Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund It seemed unfair and inappropriate that there should be no recognition.. A few preliminary concepts were embraced. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. There were so many people helping to get the legislation [passed], remembered Healy. The earliest of these battles was the controversy over Lins design. We do not seek to make any statement about the correctness of the war, Scruggs said. Over 1 million wounded, 50,000 plus civilian He found that returning veterans were finding it hard to trust people. We didnt have any space, but I liked their idea and told them I would volunteer to help with all that I could.. The task groups proved effective, as described by John Woods, who jointed as a key advisor. 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.. The series of events began on Wednesday, November 10, 1982, and culminated with a service at the National Cathedral on Sunday, November14. They set their sights in support of the clear, simple vision Scruggs outlined:to honor the warrior and not the war. 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. This alliance between the veterans and their conservative defenders was a new one, forged as a direct result of the cultural battle over the memorial site. Swartz, 95. He closed by saying: To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. When VVMF announced the selection of Lins design, the initial public reaction was generally positive. As Sturken notes in her essay, The Aesthetics of Absence: Rebuilding Ground Zero, the impetus to create a memorial at the site of the Twin Towers was almost instantaneousby the next day, even as the names and number of dead remained unknown, there was discussion of a memorial.13 Discussions about what to do with the site addressed two twin concerns: the redevelopment of what had been both a hub of commercial activity and an integral part of a broader residential neighborhoodlower Manhattanand the memorialization of the loss of lives that occurred at the site. Its mirror-like surface reflects the images of the surrounding trees, lawns and monuments. 12 (2006): 95. Afghanistan and the forever war myth | Philip Collins IAI TV The Vietnam Wall, as it's commonly known, stands as a tribute to the war's veterans, who consider it a tangible symbol that the American people recognized and honored for their service. Ibid. 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. Then, on March 30, 1972, the North Vietnamese attacked across the 17th parallel with 14 divisions and additional individual regiments. A lingering question of the war is what might have happened if Eisenhower and Ho had arranged a meeting; possibly, an accord could have been reached, or possibly Ho was simply seeking to limit American involvement, in order to more easily depose the Diem government. A few of the most vocal opponents, including James Webb and H. Ross Perot, had previously been strong supporters of a memorial. This message of personal responsibility, in contrast to governance by an elite group on behalf of individuals, became a hallmark of the Reagan administration. I think I even spilled my coffee. But, her presence made a difference. Or, people would tell me, Well why did you let him go? Of course, what choice do you have?. The war became the central rallying point of a burgeoning youth counterculture, and the coming years would see many such demonstrations, dividing generations and families.. On Christmas Eve, in Saigon, a VC set off an explosive at the American officers billet in the old Brink Hotel, killing two Americans and 51 South Vietnamese.
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