At the end of the Vietnam War, America had no memorial to its victories in two World Wars, to FDR or to the Korean War. A young Vietnam veteran, Jan Scruggs, who had written a few op-ed pieces in the Washington Post, took up the cause, and amazingly, it gained traction. Funds were raised and an architectural competition was sponsored by the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial Fund. The design was required to promote reconciliation, list the names of all who had died and be non-political. A Yale professor required his students to submit a design as part of a class project. A distinguished panel of architects reviewed 1421 proposals and unanimously selected a black granite memorial submitted by Maya Lin, a Yale undergraduate. The architects of America were enthusiastic about the design, but many others were not. It did not properly honor the dead. It was a "black gash of shame and sorrow." And many organizations would have to give their blessing and money before it would be built. Eventually, after the matter went as high as the White House, a compromise was reached. Frederick Hart's representational sculpture of three soldiers offset Lin's wall. The Veteran's Day 1982 dedication drew 150,000 people, of which 15,000 were Vietnam veteran's. The most famous image of the day shows a man with long blonde hair leaning on the wall and crying. Today, it is considered a masterpiece that has fulfilled the the requirement to promote reconciliation. It is a moving and almost sacred place. The fighting and arguing decades ago seems totally inappropriate. From my only visit, the granite wall and the statute of the three soldiers seems as if they were meant to be together.
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