A young architecture student with a penchant for primitive Outback weaponry

According to thewall-usa.com, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is “not a war Memorial but a Memorial to those who served in the war.” Be that as it may, the memorial is still a giant permanent fixture, situated smack dab in the middle of our nation’s capitol. Regardless of the ostensible/official purposes for its construction, the memorial also serves as a symbol of the Vietnam War.

To a large degree, the memorial represents America’s collective judgment of the war as a phenomenon in American history. Vietnam veterans were highly cognizant of this aspect of the memorial’s meaning; and this is why some veterans were so virulently opposed to the memorial’s design. Many veterans were viciously harassed and ‘spat’ upon by fellow American citizens when they returned from Vietnam. To these veterans, the memorial was “a black scar, hidden in a hole,” a continuation of the detached, unsympathetic judgment which had been cast upon them in airports and on the streets—as if the entire country was spitting in their faces.

In addition to any messages which the memorial may communicate to surviving Vietnam veterans and to the widows, children, and parents of nearly 60,000 fallen veterans, the memorial will also serve a significant educational function for future Americans. It tells generations to come how America feels about the Vietnam War; and successive generations will accept an increasingly summary characterization of the war, much as we do now for the “American Revolutionary War” and even “World War II.”

So what does the Vietnam Veterans Memorial say to veterans, widows, and future generations of Americans? Ultimately, this question is not definitively soluble—it is far too personal. Even two Vietnam veterans, with similar war experiences, could look at the same memorial and react quite differently. One might see it as a poignant symbol, representing the ‘price of freedom.’ Another might see a ‘black scar.’

As a representative of future generations, I will say this much: Having visited the memorial twice, my own lasting impressions are as follows: 1) Sheer volume- ‘so many fucking names’! 2) The human reality represented by the endless engravings- names like “Adam” and “James” and “Daniel.” 3) The permanence, timelessness. The wall has no artistic flourishes which reveal the passionate hand or twinkling eye of a budding artist. In fact, as I watched Maya Lin, I was almost surprised to think of the wall as having been designed, in the first place.