Vietnam Wall Dedicates: Healing After a March of Thousands

Thousands of Vietnam War veterans marched through Washington, D.C., many wearing old fatigues and unit patches, converging on the newly completed memorial that bore the names of 57,939 Americans killed or missing in the war. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in a ceremony that released emotions suppressed for nearly a decade, giving a divided nation its first shared space to grieve. The memorial had been controversial from the moment its design was selected. Maya Ying Lin, a 21-year-old Yale architecture student, won a blind competition that drew 1,421 entries. Her design was radical in its simplicity: two walls of polished black granite sunk into the earth, meeting at a 125-degree angle, inscribed with every name of the dead in chronological order of casualty. There was no heroic statuary, no flag, no traditional monument language. Some veterans were outraged, calling it a "black gash of shame." The opposition was fierce and politically charged. Tom Carhart, a decorated veteran, called the design "a tribute to Jane Fonda" at a public hearing. Ross Perot, who had funded the design competition, turned against the winning entry. Interior Secretary James Watt refused to issue a building permit until a compromise was reached: a representational bronze statue of three soldiers and a flagpole would be added nearby. Lin's design endured, and the wall's emotional power silenced most critics on dedication day. Veterans who had returned from the war to hostility or indifference broke down at the sight of familiar names. The black granite surface acts as a mirror, reflecting the faces of the living among the names of the dead, an effect Lin had intended. Visitors began leaving personal objects at the base, a spontaneous tradition that continues. The National Park Service has collected more than 400,000 items.