why was the vietnam war memorial so controversial?

Many people will not comprehend this design until they experience it. When I was attending law school, Vietnam veterans were an anomaly among the young single professional set of Washington, so it was something you didnt mention. remembered Doubek. By years end, 23,000 American military personnel would be in South Vietnam. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. (Credit: In Pictures Ltd./Corbis via Getty Images) . Direct mail was proving to be a highly effective fundraising tool. 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. 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. The entire text size and layout Lin saw as an open book. They set their sights in support of the clear, simple vision Scruggs outlined:to honor the warrior and not the war. 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. Hi, Im Claire. 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. But if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? How did people react to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial? Military personnel, including nurses, were warned not to wear their uniforms in the States. On that January day, There was a big explosion, Scruggs recalled. History of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. While many veterans successfully reintegrated into their families and communities, tucking their experiences in combat away on a mental back shelf, others were unable to cope on their own. Black walls, the universal color of shame and sorrow and degradation.. A few preliminary concepts were embraced. This grew into the operation known as Rolling Thunder that began on March 2, 1965, and continued to November 2, 1968. For years, American society as a whole, regardless of political affiliation, had studiously ignored Vietnam veterans, their presence a painful reminder of the wars moral ambiguity. 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. Earlier, Wild Bill Donovan, head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the World War II forerunner of the CIA, had also advised that the U.S. had nothing to gain and much to lose by becoming involved in what was then French Indochina. It seemed unconscionable that heor anyone elseshould be allowed to forget. Marita Sturken, The Aesthetics of Absence: Rebuilding Ground Zero, American Ethnologist 31, no. Similar, even larger, atrocities were conducted by VC and NVA unitssuch as an NVA attack on a Buddhist orphanage at An Hoa in September 1970 or the execution of 5,000 people at Hue during the Tet Offensivebut the concept of American soldiers killing civilians in cold blood was more than many Americans could bear. The truth was, veterans were no more likely to be addicted to drugs than those who did not serve. Today, The Wall continues to be the most-visited memorial on the National Mall, attracting more than five million people each year. They needed support, friendship and help. Congress swiftly passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that removed most restrictions from the president in regards to Vietnam. Heralding the end of one era and the commencement of a new one, Reagan famously proclaimed, Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem, further adding that: From time to time, we have been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. The peasants resented being forced from their ancestral lands, and consolidating them gave the VC better targets. . It is a V-shaped polished black granite wall that runs 246 feet long. One example, cited in Grab Their Belts to Fight Them: The Viet Congs Big-Unit War Against the U.S., 19651966, by Warren Wilkins, is a description of the first major battle between the VC and American ForcesU.S. A tabula rasa upon which individuals could project their individual, personal experiences of the war was what the VVMF desired and, as historian Marita Sturken and others have observed, a tabula rasa was what they got. Washington, D.C. As memorials are objects of public commemoration, we demand a lot of them. I was dumbfounded that we had succeeded at doing this. The U.S. suffered over 47,000 killed in action, Kennedy himself was assassinated in Dallas, VC and NVA units launched a massive attack, CBS evening news anchor Walter Cronkite returned to Vietnam, https://www.historynet.com/the-vietnam-war-a-history-of-americas-controversial-war/, Jerrie Mock: Record-Breaking American Female Pilot, When 21 Sikh Soldiers Fought the Odds Against 10,000 Pashtun Warriors, Few Red Tails Remain: Tuskegee Airman Dies at 96. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. They found that they were very real people who did many of the same things they did, recalled Spreiregen. You may have been tear-choked as you touched or watched others touch "the Wall" at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the most visited war memorial in our nation's capital. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). It would be a way to honor the veterans and to help themand the countryheal. Black walls, the universal color of shame and sorrow and degradation. 15. Some opponents simply did not like the fact that Lin was a young student, a woman, and of Asian descent; how in the world could she possibly know how to honor the service of the Vietnam veteran? The fact that such nongovernmental entities as the New York Times, CNN, and the Max Protetch Gallery took it upon themselves to solicit designs for both the new World Trade Center buildings and for suitable memorials to the attacks indicates the extent to which the American public writ large was attuned to the sites future. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a tribute to the dead of the United States ' longest, most unpopular, and least successful war. Although differences in the two bills required a Conference Committee to meet, on July 1, at a White House Rose Garden ceremony, President Jimmy Carter signed legislation providing two acres for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall. 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. It was one of the most resounding defeats in all of military historyuntil it became a victory. Crowd at the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 1982. However, that posed a problem of how tolocate an individual name. We expect them to do the work of history writing, to draw single comprehensible narratives out of a Gorgons nest of individual, often contradictory, experiences. Private Funding No government funds were used to build the memorial, only public land. . Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. It was World War II and her family lived in Nam Dinh, an industrial city and military target on the north coast of Vietnam. If all of the names could be in one place, these names would have great powera power to heal. ever and endured a raging national controversy over the avant-garde . They treated the moms the same as they treated the vets. 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. Jack was the visionary, the creative, big-picture guy. Im sure I looked like a deer in the headlights, I was so nervous, Scruggs recalled. Moreover, could it accomplish all of that while listing the approximately 58,000 names in an artistic, meaningful way? In an article in the Washington Post, writer Tom Wolfe defined the debate over the inclusion of Harts figurative memorial as a story of art experts and the Vietnam veteransand of how the veterans asked for a war memorial and wound up with an enormous pit they now refer to as a tribute to Jane Fonda. That changed in August 1964. Sturken, 320. 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. The priorities were to launch fund raising and achieve passage of the authorizing legislation. Others: 80,000 plus, 200,000400,000 civilians When I meet Vietnam veterans who stop me to say thank you for creating the Memorial, I always want to say: thank you, for the service and sacrifices that all of you have made in service to your country, she added. Her only son Robert, an Army draftee, was killed by a land mine on his 21st birthday, June 6, 1968. 4 (Summer 1996): 685. 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. All of them realized how critical it was that a memorial be apolitical. Seven more such immolations occurred that year. My background was relatively modest, he said. But Lin doesn't like anybody "drawing mustaches" on her design and, with the support of many in the Art world, pressures the Commission of Fine Arts to scuttle the compromise and hatch a new one. Laos, South Vietnam: 850,000 Mao Zedongs Communist Party had won the Chinese Civil War in 1949, and western governmentsparticularly that of the U.Sfeared communist expansion throughout Southeast Asia. In an interview he was asked if there was light at the end of the tunnel, and he responded that the U.S. and its allies had turned a corner in Vietnam. 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. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. VVMF met the prospective jurors and scrutinized their credentials. ), For three solid months, Spreiregen, Mosley, Woods, and Doubek planned the competition. Doubek approached Scruggs after the meeting and suggested that he form a nonprofit corporation as a vehicle to build a memorial. American involvement began to escalate under President John F. Kennedys administration (January 1961November 1963). History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) advised that was not the caseAmerica had a strong military presence in the Pacific that would serve as a deterrent. CBS evening news anchor Walter Cronkite returned to Vietnam to see for himself what was happening. This development was shaped by the theories of economic neoliberals on the one hand and by the values of their socially conservative allies on the other. Having chosen Libeskinds overarching vision, titled Memory Foundations, in February 2003, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (tasked with coordinating the redevelopment of lower Manhattan and administering the nearly $10 billion in federal funds devoted to supporting that effort) two months later announced the memorial design competition. Why the Battle for Hamburger Hill Was So Controversial. After 25 years, the way in which visitors have embraced and cherished this work has been a great gift to me, she wrote in the program for the 25th anniversary ceremony. Most at the meeting told him they didnt want a memorial; they wanted more benefits and government support. The Vietnam War was an extremely long conflict, lasting from the sending of a group of advisors to aid South Vietnam on November 1, 1955, to the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975. Both sides were fighting a war of attrition, so communist commanders sent Hanoi battle reports that often were pure fantasy. In fact, throughout the 1970s, there was little political impetus on any front to address these shortcomings. Earlier, in March 1968, the Americal Division had been involved in what became known as the My Lai Massacre, in which over 100 men, women and children were killed. The jury evaluation took place over five days, from April 27 through May 1, 1981. 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. 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. 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. An official groundbreaking ceremony was held on March 26, 1982. Maya Lins original competition submission for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Its detractors perceived it as a monument to defeat, one that spoke more directly to a nations guilt than to the honor of the war dead and the veterans, describing it as the black gash of shame, the degrading ditch, and a wailing wall for draft dodgers and New Lefters of the future.4 Responding to its lack of narrative content, Senator James Webb called it nihilistic. Interestingly (given their opposing political positions), both the National Review and the New Republic equated the list of names with a police report on a traffic accident. Once Scruggs decided to build the memorial, the next step was to get some people behind him. . Healing meant many things to many people. Its detractors perceived it as "a monument to defeat, one that spoke more directly to a nation's guilt than to the honor of the war dead and the veterans," describing it as the "black gash of shame," the "degrading ditch," and a "wailing wall for draft dodgers and New Lefters of the future." 4 Responding to its lack of 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. Waiting meant they would never reach their dedication deadline of November 11, 1982. 10. However, the years that saw the memorials proposal, design, and construction1980 to 1982coincided with a momentous shift in the topography of American political culture: the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and the ensuing negotiation of a new federal agenda. In the nine months since he'd been in-country, Scruggs had already seen a lot of action and had been wounded in a battle near Xuan Loc. 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 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. Oooo, not any more, not any more. But I was always impressed with the example my parents set.. As they forged a partnership with Mathias and his staff, VVMF also set out to establish other key relationships. Why was the Vietnam women's memorial so significant? It was the most thoughtful and thorough discussion of design that I have ever heard, and I have heard many, he recalled. After the dedication, Scruggs and Wheeler walked together along the upper side of the Memorial ground, near Constitution Avenue. They were the only father-son pair to die in Vietnam.) News footage showed the fighting in Saigon and Hue. 9. Tensions between blacks and whites had been intensifying for years as African Americans sought to change centuries-old racial policies. As the selection of the granite was narrowed down, Lin was keen on preserving the notion that the granite walls be reflective and thin to help express a critical aspectof the design that the memorial was a cut in the earth that had been polished. . United States: 540,000 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. Scruggs and Doubek realized that Cupp could be instrumental in helping communicate the all-important personal, emotional side of the healing story. The South Vietnamese Army was showing improvement, winning 37 of their last 45 major engagements. I am always incredibly moved and heartened, especially when a veteran tells me that The Wall has helped them in some wayit could not mean more to me. The U.S., possessing the largest foreign military presence, essentiallydirected the war from 1965 to 1968. I remember The Washington Post had pages and pages of stories in the A section. Vietnam veterans were, at long last, receiving the recognition they deserved. In the fall of 1980, VVMF announced the national design competition open to any U.S. citizen, who was over 18 years old. 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. We do not memorialize bus accidents, which by nature are contextless, meaningless. The first cut was further reduced to 90 by midday Wednesday. Michael Clark, Remembering Vietnam, Cultural Critique 3 (Spring 1986): 50. Scruggs added: Make this place look like an airstrike was called in, he instructed. 1. General Price, along with Senators Warner and Mathias and future Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, gave moving addresses before the command was given, and 150 shovels entered the ground with enthusiastic veterans enjoying the moment. However, polls consistently showed the majority of Americans supported the war. Some felt that the money to build a memorial could be better spent delivering the many services veterans needed. The two sections were not unlike North and South in the United States prior to the Civil War; their people did not fully trust each other. It seemed unfair and inappropriate that there should be no recognition.. . With the winning design in hand, Spreiregen had less than 24 hours to craft an explanation of the decisionand the designthat would be suitable for presentation to VVMF. That would have made any negotiation with Ho politically ticklish. The mission of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF) is to honor and preserve the legacy of service and educate all generations about the impact of the Vietnam War. But instead of enthusiasm, he received skepticism. . Black is not a color of shame. Then, on March 30, 1972, the North Vietnamese attacked across the 17th parallel with 14 divisions and additional individual regiments. To its own surprise, Hanoi found its forces advancing rapidly toward Saigon, realized victory was at hand, and renamed the operation the Ho Chi Minh Offensive. Using his findings, he testified at the Senate hearing on the Veterans Health Care Amendments Act of 1977, with the hope that he could help veterans gain access to the services and support they needed. They were real guys. Just as the American people could be a part of building the Memorial through their contributions and support, they could also have an opportunity to participate in its design. [3] It was the first representation of an African American on the National Mall. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, located in Washington D.C., is a tribute to the soldiers who served in the Vietnam War. Two nights later, Maddox and the destroyer USS Turner Joy were on patrol in the Gulf and reported they were under attack. 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. 5/1981 - 3/1982. The design Lin envisioned listed the names chronologically by date of casualty.

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