Episode #1440
American Icons: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial
If you look in the comments of this article you will find a very interesting one--
I listened to the program
yesterday, and it really opened an old wound. My brother was killed in
Vietnam. I visited it shortly after it was built, and I hated it then,
and I still hate it. Every other monument to veterans is positive; this
one is all negative. Why is the sacrifice not as noble as those who
went to other wars? And the quote from Ms. Lin just shocked me: "This
enormous veteran practically verbally pinned me at the apex and was just
yelling at the top of his lungs ... and all I could think of is, it was
working". So the goal of the monument is NOT to honor, or thank, or
comfort those that gave so much; rather it is to make them angry? Well,
job accomplished.
Oct. 06 2013 12:07 PM
I think this article gives the erroneous impression that everyone likes the Lin memorial-- many people do not and have said so from the beginning. In fact, veterans raised money for ANOTHER, different memorial to be erected in D.C. too.
Play
00:00 / 00:00
This is the monument that changed how America remembers war.
How do you build a monument to a war that was more tragic than triumphant? Maya Lin was practically a kid when she got the commission to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall.
“The veterans were asking me, ‘What do you think people are going to do
when they first come here?’” she remembers. “And I wanted to say,
‘They’re going to cry.’" Her minimalistic granite wall was derided by
one vet as a “black gash of shame.” But inscribed with the name of every
fallen soldier, it became a sacred place for veterans and their
families, and it influenced later designs like the National September 11
Memorial. We’ll visit a replica of the wall that travels to veterans’
parades around the country, and hear from Secretary of Defense Chuck
Hagel how this singular work of architecture has influenced how we think
about war.
Bonus Track: Kurt Andersen's full interview with Maya Lin
Hear Kurt's full interview with Lin about what it was like to stir up a national controversy at such a young age, and how her artistic career has evolved in the three decades since the memorial was created.
Bonus Track: Angela Matthews remembers Joseph Sintoni
Angela Matthews reads the letter she left at The Wall for her high school sweetheart, Joseph Sintoni. It was featured in Laura Palmer's book Shrapnel From The Heart.
Bonus Track: Viet Nguyen on Vietnamese memorials
Nguyen fled Vietnam with his family after the fall of Saigon, eventually settling in Pennsylvania in 1975. He has been visiting Vietnam almost every year since 2002, and explains how the war is remembered there.
Slideshow: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Memorial Resource Center
Bonus Track: Kurt Andersen's full interview with Maya Lin
Hear Kurt's full interview with Lin about what it was like to stir up a national controversy at such a young age, and how her artistic career has evolved in the three decades since the memorial was created.
Bonus Track: Angela Matthews remembers Joseph Sintoni
Angela Matthews reads the letter she left at The Wall for her high school sweetheart, Joseph Sintoni. It was featured in Laura Palmer's book Shrapnel From The Heart.
Bonus Track: Viet Nguyen on Vietnamese memorials
Nguyen fled Vietnam with his family after the fall of Saigon, eventually settling in Pennsylvania in 1975. He has been visiting Vietnam almost every year since 2002, and explains how the war is remembered there.
Slideshow: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Memorial Resource Center
Insight
Artist: Kristin RuleAlbum: The Knife that Cuts a TearTourtour
Artist: Wim Mertens & Glenn BrancaAlbum: Belly of an ArchitectLabel: Import [Generic]Purchase: AmazonElectric Counterpoint – Slow (movement 2)
Artist: Steve ReichAlbum: Different Trains/ Electric CounterpointLabel: NonesuchPurchase: AmazonMore than Just a Name on the Wall
Artist: Statler BrothersAlbum: The Definitive CollectionLabel: Mercury NashvillePurchase: AmazonThe Viet Nam Blues
Artist: Jack Sanders
Music Playlist
Guests:
Michael Arad, Aseneth Blackwell, Tom Carhart, Max Cleland, Sharon Denitto, John Devitt, Lt. Dan Doyle, Duery Felton, Chuck Hagel, Kristin Hass, Maya Lin, Angela Matthews, Levern Neely, Viet Nguyen, Laura Palmer, Kirk Savage, Jan Scruggs and Marilyn YoungProduced by:
Eric MolinskyEditors:
Leital MoladContributors:
Jocelyn FrankRelated
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This broadcast, ironically heard on the Festival of The Day of The Dead, elicited a similar effect. Kurt Andersen's insightful interview with Maya Lin is indeed a "bonus track." Thank you…it is the first time I've heard her speak; and I hope not the last. DCD
Teach us, Lord, not to hold on to life too tightly.
Teach us to hold it lightly, not carelessly, but
lightly, easily.
Teach us to take it as a gift, to enjoy and cherish
while we have it, and to let it go gracefully and thankfully
when the time comes.
The gift is great, but the giver is greater still.
Thou, O God, are the Giver and in Thee is a life
that never dies. Amen
—Rev. Theodore Parker Ferris, Rector, Trinity Church, Boston
Here's one of most poignant recognition of Vietnam Veterans ~~
E.G. Marshall, the actor emceed the First National Memorial Day Salute on Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C. and spoke these words following Taps which sounded after the reading of a Gold Star Mother’s letter to her son left at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial ~~
“To the men and women who have served us in uniform, America bows its head in Honor. To you have died for us, to you whose fate remains Unknown, and to you who live on bearing the scars of your sacrifice, we are truly grateful. There are depths of pain you have suffered for us that we can never fully comprehend. We will never know exactly what you have experienced ~ your courage and fear, your triumph and despair, your hope and loneliness. Yet in a way, your sacrifice has made us one with you. No person, no family, no country can endure war without being equally wounded. And as long as memory survives, no war is truly over. Thus we are all wounded. Those of you who were taken from us, and those of you who are disabled, and those of us who have misunderstood, together we are one in our need for healing and reconciliation.
You have offered everything for us, your lives, bodies and minds and spirits. Spirits wounded by war, and even by the people you tried to defend. Whether you have chosen this or had it thrust upon you, you have done it for us. We will never fully comprehend your gift. But we shall always remember you have given it. It is a gift of hope, hope of our healing together, hope for justice and peace for everyone. Words are inadequate and gratitude is not enough. Only our love, love spoken out in stumbling speech, love acted out in simple kindness will begin to express our reverence for your gift. To you our service men and women, America bows its head in Honor.”
Semper Fidelis,
David DeChant
Marine Vietnam Veteran
I am a Marine Vietnam Veteran and a member of the core group of veterans who joined Jan to build The Wall. I served on the public relations and fundraising task forces; and am deeply honored and humbled to have participated in the Calling of The Names at the National Cathedral. This is the prayer I said before calling my Names:
"Celebrate the peace, consecrate this place,
Softly call The Names of those we love,
Those we sadly, fiercely miss,
Those who have died and remain missing.
At the Tomb of the Unknown, we all know
The Names of the Dead."
After calling my Names, I was interviewed by Don Scott, Ch. 11, Baltimore who asked what the Memorial means to me. I paused, reflected and said, "I hope the Memorial will be a constant reminder to those who make foreign policy decisions, of the costs of those decisions in stark human terms; and that the American people are ultimately responsible for their decisions."
_______
I greatly appreciate this presentation with one exception ~ The Wall does NOT "commemorate or memorialize war" as noted in the opening narrative. However, later you clarify The Wall transcends the debate about the war, and honors the Dead, Missing and Survivors, and begins to Heals Our Souls.
I escorted Maya that night at The Wall when the veteran began yelling and pounding his artificial leg surrounded by dozens of fellow veterans. I also met her parents and spoke to them in Mandarin when they came to D.C.
____________
Arthur Engendorf, a Vietnam Veteran author notes, “healing is the way we restore ourselves...with a little help from our friends, we can heal ourselves, even from war...healing culminates in a renewed vision of what is possible for us and our world. In light of this vision, our individual healing shifts from being the center of attention to an instance of much more encompassing possibility ~ healing for all humanity.”
Legitimacy of moral life depends on the willingness of men and women to struggle with such questions before they decide what to do. Also Karl Jaspers, a German WW II philosopher notes, “all men, like all nations, are tested twice in the moral realm ~ first by what they do, then by what they make of what they do. A condition of responsibility denotes a kind of second chance: men are, as if by a kind of grace, given a chance to repay to the living what it is they find themselves owing the dead.”
_______
THE MEDIA IS MIGHTIER THAN WAR ®
Treasure Life & Semper Fidelis,
David DeChant
1/26 & 3/4 Marines
July 66 - August 67
Combat Intelligence NCO
Assigned to Scouts
I have been reading and thinking about contemporary art the past few months, particularly trying to understand its relevance among the general public who resist modern/contemporary outdoor art and architecture. However, the memorial has convinced me of the power of contemporary art and its meaning. It must be the only work of contemporary art that elicits a response from the visitor which doesn't lead to contempt or apathy. The design is a witness to the power and depth of modern art which breaks the "classical" mold.
If the memorial was designed and built made to look like a contemporary version of the Civil War memorials at Gettysburg and elsewhere it not elicit such power that the Vietnam Memorial conveys to contemporary visitors.
the DC wall, "it would be nine miles long". Something to think about. - dh
Great program on American Icons: Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Vietnam shaped much of my life when I was in my 20's and you program was exactly the way it was. Crazy times.
Jeff Turner
But neglected are those Americans who perhaps also deserve at least some recognition for helping to bring the war to an end after most Americans realized that it was a fruitless endeavor based on a mistaken "domino theory." Richard Nixon was elected President in 1968, based to some extent on his pledge to end the war and his "secret plan" to accomplish that. Only later did we learn that his secret plan was to further escalate the war to force the North Vietnamese to the bargaining table. (The war continued under Nixon until 1973, when America and North Vietnam signed a peace treaty, but the war between North and South Vietnam continued.) We also discovered after the fact that "The Gulf of Tonkin" incident that Nixon's predecessor, Pres. Lyndon Johnson, had used to obtain Congressional authorization to expand U.S. involvement in the war, was based on faulty intelligence.
From the point of view of many Vietnamese, the Vietnam War was simply a continuation of Vietnam's quest to be independent, first against the French, then the Japanese, and the French again, and now the Americans. So many draft-age Americans refused induction into a military fighting a war against the principal of liberty on which the U.S. was founded. Some draft dodgers went to prison and some to Canada. While some may have simply been cowards, other conscientious objectors deserve commendation for the suffering they went through in refusing to compromise their principals. Should they too not get at least some recognition for the sacrifices they made, albeit not comparable to those who served, to end the war?
Thanks you for this great program, it helps validate my efforts and I hope others will benefit from hearing it and perhaps from visiting my site, too.
As a volunteer at the Miami VA Hospital, I meet some of these veterans and will tell them about this program.
I'd like to know the title of the book and the author's name about the items collected at the wall.