why was the vietnam war memorial so controversial? why was the vietnam war memorial so controversial?

The winning designwas the work of Maya Ying Lin of Athens, Ohio, a 21-year-old senior at Yale University. Intellectually and emotionally, America could embrace the idea. I just kept thinking to myself how quiet it was, and yet there was an immense feeling of community. The design Lin envisioned listed the names chronologically by date of casualty. There were so many people helping to get the legislation [passed], remembered Healy. 4 (Summer 1996): 685. 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. He was an excellent partner and fundraiser. Mathias knew the legislative process. Overview Military conscription, commonly known as "the draft," is one of the most complex topics related to the Vietnam War. Millionaire H. Ross Perot made a sizeable donation. Many pushed friends in wheelchairs. Mathias also knew the country was ready, Healy recalled. The body count policy fell into disfavor and was not employed in future American wars; in Vietnam it led officers to inflate enemy casualties. 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 Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. (Credit: In Pictures Ltd./Corbis via Getty Images) . 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. Ruling out an invasion of North Vietnam assured that a purely military victory would not be possible, a fact that was at odds with many Americans expectations for the war. 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. Which Secretary of the Interior James Watt then threatens to scuttle! The jury evaluation took place over five days, from April 27 through May 1, 1981. Westmoreland adopted a search-and-destroy policy to find and engage the enemy and use superior firepower to destroy him. But the war news was hopeful. Furthermore, he explicitly framed his interpretation of the memorial in (perceived) opposition to an explicitly artistic perspective. On April 27, 1979, four years after the fall of Saigon, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Inc. (VVMF) was incorporated as a non-profit organization to establish a memorial to honor the veterans of the Vietnam War. 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. 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. As Scruggs had always envisioned, the Memorial would feature all of the names of those who had died. They stressed that all funds for the Memorial would be raised from private donations. The earliest of these battles was the controversy over Lins design. Furthermore, the extreme visual simplicity of Lins monument made it easy for critics to utilize it in a concurrent debate about the merits of minimalist sculptures as public artworks. 9. (His son, Marine Corps lance corporal Richard Fitzgibbon III would be killed in action in Vietnam September 7, 1965. ", 3: The Political Controversy, By June 1977, Scruggs was attending graduate school at American University in Washington, D.C. and had embarked on a research study exploring the social and psychological consequences of Vietnam military duties. 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. 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. United States: 540,000 Early in his efforts Scruggs had called on Emogene Cupp, then the national president of the American Gold Star Mothers. Her only son Robert, an Army draftee, was killed by a land mine on his 21st birthday, June 6, 1968. In accordance with the strict competition guidelines, anonymity of all designs was carefully observed. After Lins monument was dedicated on November 13, 1982, however, it became a popular and moving tourist attraction. As soon as ground was broken for The Wall in March 1982, planning for its dedication ceremonies began. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could. 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. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. 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 fact, he would spend a lifetime trying to honor their memory. Lacking sufficient services to assist their recovery, some of these unassimilated veterans turned to alcohol and other drugs, their addictions only sending them further to the margins of society. There is also disharmony between the nay-saying wall and the unequivocally proud flag [] And nothing has happened to make Maya Lins creation look less like what it suggests to some veterans and some non-combatant citizens: an open grave.'9. In retaliation for the invasion, and in hopes of forcing Hanoi to negotiate in good faith, Nixon ordered Haiphong harbor in North Vietnam to be mined and he intensified bombing of North Vietnam. It was designed by American architect Maya Lin. The reputation of the jurors was important to attract the best designers and to minimize second guessing by the Federal approval bodies. The public wanted to have a hand in helping to build the Memorial and in honoring the warrior, not the war. Once Scruggs decided to build the memorial, the next step was to get some people behind him. Cambodia Before the 1880s, the French controlled Vietnam. The American Legion, VFW, Disabled American Veterans (DAV), AMVETS, and Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) made sure their members knew that veterans were going to be honored and welcomed that week on the National Mall. The proposed Vietnam memorial was a . Rip it apart.. 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. At 21 and still an undergraduate, Linconceived her design as creating a park within a park a quiet protected place unto itself, yet harmonious with the overall plan of Constitution Gardens. The Three Soldiers, 198284. On January 27, 1973, peace accords were signed between North Vietnam and the U.S. 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. Images of fighting, of dead and wounded soldiers, of POWs held in North Vietnam were beamed into Americas living rooms night after night, as was footage of hundreds, sometimes thousands of antiwar protestors marching through the streets. The administration was caught by surprise, however, when Diem was murdered during the coup, which was led by General Duong Van Minh. For the millions of people who visit each year, Maya Lin's Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall sends a chilling message about war, heroism, and sacrifice. 18. It seemed every time they contacted someone, they were greeted with enthusiasm for the idea. 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. Instead, the memorial became a dividing line between factions both real and imagined. Though its location on federally owned property and its maintenance by the National Park Service might imply otherwise, the impetus to create the Vietnam Veterans Memorial came entirely from the private sector and from one man in particular: Jan Scruggs, a Vietnam veteran who had been wounded in the line of duty. 3) It provoked antiwar sentiment. On the other hand, Congress had never declared war and so the president was limited in what he could do in Southeast Asia. 20. The Memorials walls point to the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial, thus bringing the Memorial into the historical context of our country. They needed support, friendship and help. 7. Unlike previous wars, where only still images or short movie newsreels were available for conveying images, this was Americas first television war. 13. Then, in October 1980, veteran and lawyer Tom Carhart, also a former supporter, testified before the Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) against the design, saying that One needs no artistic education to see this design for what it is, a black trench that scars the Mall. This grew into the operation known as Rolling Thunder that began on March 2, 1965, and continued to November 2, 1968. 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. 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. For example, veteran Tom Carhart famously commented: I dont care about artistic perceptions, I dont care about the rationalizations that abound. The National Park Service archives most of the nonperishable items left at The Wall. Because he possessed great knowledge of history, he understood the extensive healing process required after war. In November 2003, the LMDC placed the proposals of the eight finalists on display for public review.16 According to Sturken and art historian Anne Swartz, criticism of the designs, including that of the eventual winner, Peter Walkers and Michael Arads Reflecting Absence, revolved in large part around their perceived minimalist aesthetic, once again drawing on the rhetoric involved in the Tilted Arc debate. He also wanted to find a way to help them heal and suggested that the country build a national memorial as a symbol that the country cared about them. On the other side, the same thing was occurring, with even more inflated numbersvastly more. Our country needed something symbolic to help heal our wounds.. Corruption and instability in South Vietnams government did not instill confidence in its people, or in the Americans working with it. This began a series of destabilizing changes in government leadership. He would never forget those friends. 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. Yet, to say the media cost America victory in Vietnam is vastly oversimplifying a very complex situation. 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. Why were people angry about the Vietnam War memorial? To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. In July 1959, North Vietnams leaders passed an ordinance called for continued socialist revolution in the north and a simultaneous revolution in South Vietnam. How were Vietnam veterans treated when they returned from the war? It ended with communist victory in April 1975. 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. 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. From the beginning, people have left tributes at its base. Ike may not have seen the message, but at any rate he was focused on establishing NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) as a wall against additional communist advances in Europe and was intent on securing Frances participation in NATO. Hanoi offered to restart peace talks, yet remained intransigent in its demands. Lins minimal plan was in sharp contrast to the traditional format for a memorial, which usually included figurative heroic sculpture. The Three Soldiers (also known as The Three Servicemen) is a bronze statue by Frederick Hart. The NVA had to take over. Adding to Americans disillusionment was the race issue. 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. ), For three solid months, Spreiregen, Mosley, Woods, and Doubek planned the competition. By the end of 1967, there were 540,000 American troops in Vietnam, and the military draft was set to call up 302,000 young men in the coming year, an increase of 72,000 over 1967. She is still remembered fondly by veterans for the moving Memorial she designed for them. Black walls, the universal color of shame and sorrow and degradation.. The wars length and the growing number of casualties were fueling tensions. 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 what constituted an appropriate memorial at the end of the 20th century.