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. Their initial timeline was aggressive, with an ultimate goal of dedicating the Memorial on Veterans Day 1982just a little more than 36 months away. 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. They serve as testaments to lives lost, as repositories of grief, and to facilitate processes of mourning. Jack was the visionary, the creative, big-picture guy. Both Scruggss and the VVMFs statements clearly conveyed that the memorial the veterans sought was to be an apolitical tabula rasa that would neither contribute to nor comment upon the unresolved controversies surrounding the war. To achieve this effect she chose polished black granite for the walls. The three of them had different strengths, Healy explained. Ibid. As conservatives sought to consolidate their gains following Reagans election, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial controversy presented an opportunity for conservatives to harness both the affective power of the veterans fury and the resulting public outcry on their behalf. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. (Credit: In Pictures Ltd./Corbis via Getty Images) . PDF Why was the Vietnam War so Controversial? - University of Wisconsin It would be a way to honor the veterans and to help themand the countryheal. 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. On April 30, their tanks entered Saigon. However, the media was not the only entity invested in the veterans compelling predicament. On February 7, 1965, the U.S. Air Force began bombing selected sites in North Vietnam. His research had proven that post-traumatic stress was real and had shone a light on the challenges faced by a significant number of military veterans. On the other side were the veterans and their self-appointed spokesmen, politicians such as Webb and James Watt (Secretary of the Interior under Ronald Reagan), and social conservatives such as Pat Buchanan. 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. 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. In April 1995, Vietnams communist government said 1.1 million combatants had died between 1954 and 1975, and another 600,000 wounded. This began a series of destabilizing changes in government leadership. Washington, D.C. As memorials are objects of public commemoration, we demand a lot of them. The NVA suffered some 120,000 casualties. Instead, the memorial became a dividing line between factions both real and imagined. The battle was suddenly over.. ARVN divisions in the north were surrounded and routed. It was a direct result of the First Indochina War (19461954) between France, which claimed Vietnam as a colony, and the communist forces then known as Viet Minh. Military personnel, including nurses, were warned not to wear their uniforms in the States. The reputation of the jurors was important to attract the best designers and to minimize second guessing by the Federal approval bodies. The Inspiration. They felt it was a slap in the face to those who had served because it did not contain traditional symbols honoring service, courage, and sacrifice. Wheeler suggested that it should be a landscaped solution: a peaceful, park-like setting that could exist harmoniously with the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. (Some in the North Vietnamese government thought the course of war in the south was unwise, but they were overruled.) Im the News & Social Editor at HistoryNet and a World War II researcher with an unparalleled affinity for Sir Winston Churchill, Spitfires, and Michigan football. For weeks, he obsessed about the idea of building a memorial. He was an excellent partner and fundraiser. Mathias knew the legislative process. Marling and Silberman, 11. The Vietnam War is the commonly used name for the Second Indochina War, 1954-1975. Descriptions of the desired qualities for the memorial design included harmonious, contemplative and reflective, and again, conciliatory.2 The booklet concluded with the following passage: Finally, we wish to repeat that the memorial is not to be a political statement, and that its purpose is to honor the service and memory of the wars dead, its missing, and its veteransnot the war itself. Hamburger hill number - Math Formulas First Inaugural Address (January 20, 1981), Ronald Wilson Reagan, Miller Center For Public Affairs, University of Virginia, accessed April 21, 2011, https://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3407. 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. We expect them to do the work of history writing, to draw single comprehensible narratives out of a Gorgon's nest of individual, often contradictory, experiences. (An American medic treated him during World War II, probably saving his life.) 3. She greeted each visitor in a regal fashion, wearing a dressing gown, perfect makeup, and beautiful shoes that curled up at the toes. When VVMF announced the selection of Lins design, the initial public reaction was generally positive. When Lin asked how many Smiths would be on The Wall, the team realized how important the chronological listing was to the design. The Vietnam Women's Memorial was established to honor the women who risked their lives to serve their country. In less than two weeks, these strategic bombers had shattered the norths defenses. They were also keenly aware that the legislation made the Memorials design subject to the approval of the Commission of Fine Arts (CFA), the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC), and the Secretary of the Interior. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. 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. Their military experience meant they had contacts far and wide, at all levels of all professions, within government and the private sector. On August 2, two North Vietnamese torpedo boats in broad daylight engaged USS Maddox, which was gathering communications intelligence in the Gulf of Tonkin. After working alone for six months, Doubek was joined on the staff by Kathy Kielich, who served as the Office Manager throughout the project. Scruggs was raised in a rural Maryland town between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. His mother was a waitress; his father a milkman. Each submittal had to be hung at eye level for review by the jury. With such an overwhelming response to the competition, logistics became an issue. My background was relatively modest, he said. Ho Chi Minh had been educated in Paris. 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. That bothered him. By years end, 2,573 individuals and teams had registered almost 3,800 people in total. 13. Lin moved to Washington and immediately became part of an internal struggle for control of the design. 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. They came from all parts of the country and represented every state. On April 27, 1979, Doubek incorporated the fledgling entity, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, and Scruggs asked him to be an officer and director. But if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? During the 1970s, it . Some of the juror comments included: Everyone wanted to join the effort. South Vietnam 5. 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 However, that posed a problem of how tolocate an individual name. He had been a war correspondent during World War II and had reported from Vietnam during Americas early involvement. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. Despite the fact that beyond certain superficial qualities, Lins memorial shared little in common with the work of classic Minimalist artists such as Richard Serra or Donald Judd, critics nonetheless conflated it with Serras equally controversial Tilted Arc, labeling it another example of an inscrutable Minimalist public artwork erected at taxpayers expense. On September 30, 1964, the first large-scale antiwar demonstration took place in America, on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley. Washington, D.C. Aerial view. Support for the war eroded further. President Johnson, watching the broadcast, said, If weve lost Walter Cronkite, weve lost the country. In May, Johnson announced he would not run for reelection. At the time, well-managed open design competitions were common in Europe, but not in the United States. 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. The program, which had been poorly managed, was abandoned after about two years, following the coup that deposed Diem. . Overview Military conscription, commonly known as "the draft," is one of the most complex topics related to the Vietnam War. 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. During the Second World War, Vichy France could do little to protect its colony from Japanese occupation. It ended with communist victory in April 1975. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. Rip it apart.. We had to build credibility among the design community, but also build credibility with the veterans, said Woods. 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. Tensions between blacks and whites had been intensifying for years as African Americans sought to change centuries-old racial policies. Why the Vietnam War Memorial is amazing - Military Times With the site approved, VVMF scrambled to address the issues of what the Memorial would look like and who would design it. In accordance with the strict competition guidelines, anonymity of all designs was carefully observed. More than 150,000 veterans, families, loved ones and friends made plans to attend. Corrections? North Vietnam spent two years rebuilding its military; South Vietnam was hamstrung in its responses by a fear the U.S. Congress would cut off all aid if it took military action against communist buildup. Perhaps thats an appropriate design for those who would spit on us still. 5/1981 - 3/1982. 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. Jan came to our headquarters to see if we had any room to help them get started, Cupp remembered. By the March 31, 1981, deadline, 1,421 design entries were submitted for judging. 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. In the nine months since hed been in-country, Scruggs had already seen a lot of action and had been wounded in a battle near Xuan Loc. 7. 15. 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. ", 3: The Political Controversy, Though a congressional investigative committee the previous year had warned that America could find itself slipping into in a morass that would require more and more military participation in Vietnam, Johnson began a steady escalation of the war, hoping to bring it to a quick conclusion. By years end, 23,000 American military personnel would be in South Vietnam. Could a memorial accomplish such an enormous and daunting task? 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. Scruggs and Doubek began having regular meetings with John P. Wheeler, a graduate of West Point and Harvard Business School. They struck at least 30 provincial capitals and the major cities of Saigon and Hue. North Vietnam, had by then established a presence in Laos and developed the Ho Chi Minh Trail through that country in order to resupply and reinforce its forces in South Vietnam. Throughout the judging process, one of the judges, Grady Clay, had taken meticulous notes of the jurys discussions. Ho attempted to contact Eisenhower to discuss Vietnam but received no answer. Because Warner was from Virginia and Mathias from Maryland, the two had worked together on many regional issues. Its primary goal was to demoralize the North Vietnamese and diminish their manufacturing and transportation abilities. Direct mail was proving to be a highly effective fundraising tool. 14. Here's how a controversial work of art healed America after Vietnam Shortly after the dedication of the land for the memorial, the VVMF announced an open competition for designs for the memorial itself.