why was the vietnam war memorial so controversial

I remind all of you of Martin Luther King Jr., who fought for justice for all Americans. 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 names were similarly read out loud in 1982, 1992, 2002 and 2007. Scruggs would never forget the awful scene. The National Park Service has kept and preserved more than 100,000 offeringsSouth Vietnamese money, American medals and insignia, bits of uniforms, combat boots, a captured Viet Cong flag, and even a chopper style customized Harley motorcycle. That same month, Kennedy himself was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. It ultimately chose entry number 1026, which it found to be an eloquent place where the simple meeting of earth, sky and remembered names contains messages for all.. One of Mathias early key suggestions was that the memorial should be on the Mall, especially because the anti-war demonstrations had taken place there. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. Site contains certain content that is owned A&E Television Networks, LLC. Why was the Vietnam The memorial was similarly controversial at first. There were so many people helping to get the legislation [passed], remembered Healy. 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. CBS evening news anchor Walter Cronkite returned to Vietnam to see for himself what was happening. In the end, the quarry in India was selected. His reasoning was that a complete mess would make it tough to stop construction. No one wanted the war to happen in the first place, so having a memorial was a constant reminder of the war no one wanted . 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. The division was supposed to be temporary: elections were to be held in both sections in 1956 to determine the countrys future. 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. One section of wall points to the Washington Monument, the other towards the Lincoln Memorial. EIN: 52-1149668, Copyright 2023 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Javascript must be enabled for the correct page display, History of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. Vietnam: A Controversial War Originally, Vietnam ended at the 17th parallel, but it gradually conquered all the area southward along the coastline of the South China Sea and west to Cambodia. No government funds would be necessary. The controversy about the wall reflected Americas feelings at that time regarding our involvement in Vietnam. He had been a war correspondent during World War II and had reported from Vietnam during Americas early involvement. No American air strikes came to aid the overstretched South Vietnamese, despite Nixons earlier assurances to Thieu. By years end, 23,000 American military personnel would be in South Vietnam. If it sounds somber, it is. Others questioned the intent of the Memorial. 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. Spreiregen wrote, I saw this as a needed opportunity to honor the service and lives of the soldiers we had lost and do so by running a model competition., Arthur Mosley headed the site selection task group and was assisted by John Woods, a structural engineer, who had been permanently disabled in a helicopter crash in Vietnam. The names are inscribed in the chronological order of their dates of casualty, showing the war as a series of individual human sacrifices and giving each name a special place in history. During the Second World War, Vichy France could do little to protect its colony from Japanese occupation. The following week, Kurt Anderson recapped the festivities for TIME magazine: Saturdays three-hour parade down Constitution Avenue, led by [Gen. William] Westmoreland, was the vets own show. 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. Design and Layout Maya Lin conceived her design as creating a park within a park a quiet protected place unto itself, yet harmonious with the overall plan of Constitution Gardens. Vietnam The VC was effectively finished; it would not field more than 25,00040,000 troops at any time for the remainder of the war. He had spent three months recovering in a hospital before being sent back to fight with rocket-propelled grenade fragments permanently embedded in his body. Within a few years, he began calling for a memorial to help with the healing process for the roughly 3 million Americans who served in the conflict. 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. Black walls, the universal color of shame and sorrow and degradation.. By 1979, the country was beginning to have more positive feelings toward Vietnam veterans. The first American fatality was Air Force Technical Sergeant Richard B. Fitzgibbon, Jr., killed June 8, 1956. The wars length and the growing number of casualties were fueling tensions. Early in his efforts Scruggs had called on Emogene Cupp, then the national president of the American Gold Star Mothers. 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. 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. Men looking for each others names on the wall would realize who was standing nearby, and embrace in tears. After Lins monument was dedicated on November 13, 1982, however, it became a popular and moving tourist attraction. hSMk0+:dYm($nXBD$[e~g{xh. Vietnam Memorial The Vietnam War was the longest in U.S. history until the Afghanistan War (20012021). READ MORE: Why Were Vietnam War Vets Treated Poorly When They Returned? On June 11, 1963, an elderly Buddhist monk named Thich Quang Duc sat down in the street in front of a pagoda in Saigon to protest Diems policies. Range Report: How Good Is the Smith and Wesson M&P FPC 9mm Folding Carbine? They werent nice. Eventually, a compromise was reached with the commissioning of a traditional statue depicting three servicemen with a flag to stand at the entrance to the memorial. Lin went on to design the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, and Yale Universitys Womens Table, which honors the first female students admitted to her alma mater. With the jury selected, the next task was to announce and promote the competition. The battle was suddenly over.. We had been friends for a long time, Mathias said. To achieve this effect she chose polished black granite for the walls. WebART HISTORY Describe the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial. An ad hoc group of veterans had scheduled a meeting to try to use Vietnam Veterans Week to generate publicity for veterans need, and Scruggs thought that would be a good time to announce his plans. Scruggs, a veteran himself, is credited with getting the memorial built. It depicts three uniformed women with a wounded soldier and serves as a reminder of the important support and caregiving roles that women played in the war as nurses, air traffic controllers, communication specialists, etc. Veterans groups decried the lack of patriotic or heroic symbols often seen on war memorials and complained that it seemingly honored only the fallen and not the living veterans. History of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial - Vietnam Veterans Over the next few years, as the war came to a close and more and more troops returned home, the media began to paint a picture of the stereotypical Vietnam veteran: drug addicted, bitter, discontented, and unable to adjust to life back home. In less than two weeks, these strategic bombers had shattered the norths defenses. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. American drawdown continued, with only 43,000 personnel left in-country by mid-August. The VVMF group liked them all and approved of them with trust and enthusiasm, even selecting three sculptors, making a total of eight jurors. From the registration forms, it was apparent that architects, artists, designers, as well as veterans and students of all ages and all levels of experience were planning to participate. The winning designwas the work of Maya Ying Lin of Athens, Ohio, a 21-year-old senior at Yale University. And I wanted to say, Theyre going to cry.". History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. What are the Microsoft Word shortcut keys? "I wanted to mark the collective loss but also the individual loss that one by one by one created this tally.". Why was the Vietnam War Memorial so controversial? - 2023 Like all stereotypes, this one was unfair. An air war was the most that could be done north of the 17th parallel, because the use of ground troops had been ruled out. And if they themselves didnt know how to help, they knew someone who did. Over 1 million wounded, 50,000 plus civilian Why was the Vietnam Memorial so controversial? Yoforia.com North Vietnam In a February 27, 1968, broadcast he summed up what he had found during his return trip to the war zone. One day in October 1969, fifteen members of the Americal Division wore black armbands while they were on patrol, the symbol antiwar protestors wore in the states. What were some of Maya Lins ideas for this memorial? Vietnam Veterans Memorial - Vietnam Veterans Memorial (U.S. Learn More WebWhy was the Vietnam womens memorial so significant? . WebWhy was the Vietnam Way Memorial so controversial? The Memorial had several purposes, he explained. An electrical storm was interfering with the ships radar and may have given the impression of approaching attack boats. monument, Washington, District of Columbia, United States. The NVA had to take over. This fear evolved into the Domino Theory; if one country fell to communist control, its neighbors would also soon fall like a row of dominos. Since July 3, 1863, there have been many calls for Confederate flags to be returned to their home states, and in particular, for the 28th Virginia Infantry Regiment flag return to Virginia. 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. His successor, Lyndon Baines Johnson, inherited the Vietnam situation. Two nights later, Maddox and the destroyer USS Turner Joy were on patrol in the Gulf and reported they were under attack. What are the five major reasons humans create art? The country was trying to emerge from an economic recession, and the recent military failure of Operation Eagle Claw, the abortive attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran, was fresh in Americans minds. On August 2, two North Vietnamese torpedo boats in broad daylight engaged USS Maddox, which was gathering communications intelligence in the Gulf of Tonkin. The communist takeover of China and subsequent war in Korea (1950-53) against North Korean and Chinese troops had focused a great deal of attention on Southeast Asia as a place to take a strong stand against the spread of communism. A chronological listing would also allow a returning veteran to find his or her time of service on The Wall and those who died together to remain together forever on The Wall. Like the war itself, the monument proved controversial. Why was the Vietnam Memorial so controversial? By the March 31, 1981, deadline, 1,421 design entries were submitted for judging. North Vietnam was a prodigy of both the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Red China. I ran over to see a truck on fire and a dozen of my friends dying. They had been unloading an ammunition truck when the explosion occurred. 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. How should we remember a war that we "lost"? Tuskegee Airman Clarence D. Lester Broke Barriers, Biography: You Need to Know: Rick Thornton. There are over 58,000 names inscribed in the memorial, all representing either confirmed deaths or those who are still missing. With its popularity among the American people has also come critical acclaim; in 2007 the American Institute of Architects named it tenth on the list of Americas Favorite Architecture. What was once a controversial, disturbing reminder of an unpopular war finally has become a cherished place of healing. After working alone for six months, Doubek was joined on the staff by Kathy Kielich, who served as the Office Manager throughout the project. 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. ARVN divisions in the north were surrounded and routed. Some public officials voiced their displeasure, calling the wall a black gash of shame. Controversy By early 1982, VVMF asked Warner to bring together both sides for a closed-door session to hammer out the issues. 6 Things You May Not Know About the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Scruggs envisioned a Vietnam War memorial that would focus attention on the lives that were lost, thus transcending divisive debates about why the war was fought. Each contestant sealed his or her name in an envelope and taped it to the back of the submission. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial stands as a symbol of America's honor and recognition of the men and women who served and sacrificed their lives in the Vietnam War. What does a news production assistant do? The pilot of an F-8E Crusader did not see any ships in the area where the enemy was reported, and years later crew members said they never saw attacking craft. Remembering Vietnam: The Story Behind 'The Wall' One needs no artistic education to see this memorial design for what it is, remarked one critic, a black scar, in a hole, hidden as if out of shame. In a letter to President Ronald Reagan, 27 Republican congressmen called it a political statement of shame and dishonor., Secretary of the Interior James Watt, who administered the site, sided with the critics and blocked the project until changes were made. For weeks, heated discussions took place around the topic of who should be part of the design jury. But how and where could all of the submissions be displayed? At the time, well-managed open design competitions were common in Europe, but not in the United States. In April 1995, Vietnams communist government said 1.1 million combatants had died between 1954 and 1975, and another 600,000 wounded. The U.S. suffered over 47,000 killed in action plus another 11,000 non-combat deaths; over 150,000 were wounded and 10,000 missing. (Ten times as many Vietnamese had fled the north, where the Communist Party was killing off its rivals, seizing property, and oppressing the large Catholic population.) The ceasefire allowed Nixon to declare peace with honor, but no provisions existed for enforcing the terms of the accords. 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. Not even three years after the memorial opened, the New York Times reported it was something of a surprise is how quickly America has overcome the divisions caused by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.. Prior war memorials had depicted brave soldiers riding horses, shooting guns, or at some other moment of triumphfor example, the massive Marine Corps War Memorial with its enormous bronze figures raising the American flag over Iwo Jima. Every day, park rangers collect and tag the items, noting which wall panel each item was left beneath. Prominent Americans who had previously supported the idea of erecting a Vietnam memorial backed out of the project. Who Are the Rival Generals in the Sudan Conflict. They were either ignored or shouted at and called vicious names. 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. A few of the most vocal opponents, including James Webb and H. Ross Perot, had previously been strong supporters of a memorial. Two U.S. helicopter units arrived in Saigon in 1961. Mathias and Warner continually stressed that their objective was to provide the country with a symbol for reconciliation. With the seed money from several defense industry donors, especially Grumman Aerospace, VVMF launched its first large-scale direct mail campaign to reach out to the public. Diem fell from favor with his American patrons, partly over disagreements in how to handle the war against the VC and partly because of his unpopular suppression of religious sects and anyone he feared threatened his regime. The color black was chosen, not as a symbol of defeat, but to symbolically represent the earth. ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) People of all ages got to explore a special helicopter at the nations second largest Vietnam veterans memorial on Saturday. They came from veterans and from the neighbors, teachers, coaches and friends of veterans. 915 0 obj <> endobj Courtesy of the JFK Library. Letters came from moms, dads, grandparents, sons and daughters with heartfelt notes accompanied by checks and dollar bills. Tour Washington D.C.'s Arlington National Cemetery, Tomb of the Unknowns, and Vietnam Veterans Memorial, This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Vietnam-Veterans-Memorial, How Stuff Works - History - Vietnam Veterans Memorial, National Park Service - Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Doubek approached Scruggs after the meeting and suggested that he form a nonprofit corporation as a vehicle to build a memorial. I heard that those present agreed to double their contributions after Taylor completed her remarks, Scruggs said. WebThe memorial, located near the western end of the Mall, is a black granite V-shaped wall inscribed with the names of the approximately 58,000 men and women who were killed or The VC and NVA dragged off as many of their dead and wounded as possible, sometimes impressing villagers into performing this task during battles, so determining their casualties was guesswork based on such things as the number of blood trails. 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 The domino fell but did not take down any of those around it. Controversy ), For three solid months, Spreiregen, Mosley, Woods, and Doubek planned the competition. Her minimalistic granite wall was initially derided as a black gash of shame by Vietnam veteran Tom Carhart. Contents1 What are three facts about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial?2 What is the [] Mathias set up a meeting so he could learn more. Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund | 3033 Wilson Blvd, Suite 300 | Arlington VA 22201 | 202.393.0090 Since all submissions were anonymous, the eight-member jury made its selection based solely on the quality of the designs. It seemed every time they contacted someone, they were greeted with enthusiasm for the idea. The information provided here does not represent the views of Cheaper Than Dirt! WebWhen the men returned home from war, they were not greeted with pride but with uneasiness. They come because of the symbolism surrounding the beautiful monument. It was designed by American architect Maya Lin. Required fields are marked *. 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. Intellectually and emotionally, America could embrace the idea. It was designed by American architect Maya Lin. Their motto is: Honor the dead by serving the living. Volunteering to assist VVMF was an ideal opportunity for Cupp to do just that. The Vietnam War is the commonly used name for the Second Indochina War, 19541975. As Scruggs had always envisioned, the Memorial would feature all of the names of those who had died.
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why was the vietnam war memorial so controversial 2023