why was the vietnam war memorial so controversial?

Its mirror-like surface reflects the images of the surrounding trees, lawns and monuments. 3. 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. The senior staffers were against it. With the winning design in hand, Spreiregen had less than 24 hours to craft an explanation of the decisionand the designthat would be suitable for presentation to VVMF. Although the United States won the war in a numerical sense, having far less casualties than North Vietnam, the U.S. did not accomplish what they had set out to do. The families of service members who were missing in action originally wanted their names listed separately. After meeting with the VVMF officers and advisors, Warner volunteered to help the organization raise the seed money needed to launch the fund raising campaign. History of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. . In April 1995, Vietnams communist government said 1.1 million combatants had died between 1954 and 1975, and another 600,000 wounded. Although publicly the war in the south was described as a civil war within South Vietnam, it was guided, equipped and reinforced by the communist leadership in Hanoi. Every major engagement between U.S. forces and VC or NVA was an American victory, and the casualty (body count) ratio always showed significantly larger casualties for the communist forces than for the Americans. Instead, Lin found John Benson, a master stonecutter, to hand cut the text at the apex the years of the earliest and latest casualties from the Department of Defense list and the brief prologue and epilogue adjacent to the dates. Two nights later, Maddox and the destroyer USS Turner Joy were on patrol in the Gulf and reported they were under attack. Vietnam has a long history of being ruled by foreign powers, and this led many Vietnamese to see the United States involvement in their country as neo-colonialism. Yet, this seemingly god-given shrine wears political feet of clay, and behind it lies a fierce controversy that re-opened the wounds of the war the memorial was designed to heal. What they did need, however, was an acceptable location for the Memorial and enough support to push the idea through various governmental committees and agencies. 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. The peasants resented being forced from their ancestral lands, and consolidating them gave the VC better targets. Thirty years later, it is difficult to think of her memorial as a controversial work of art. 1. Watt followed on March 11, 1982, by granting permission for the construction permits. The NVA suffered some 120,000 casualties. It seemed unfair and inappropriate that there should be no recognition.. 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. Crowd at the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 1982. Four of the eight were themselves veterans of previous wars. 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. It echoed the theme that regardless of how anyone felt about the war itself, everyone cared about honoring the men and women who had served and those who had ultimately lost their lives. A tabula rasa upon which individuals could project their individual, personal experiences of the war was what the VVMF desired and, as historian Marita Sturken and others have observed, a tabula rasa was what they got. On July 9, 1964, China had announced it would step in if the U.S. attacked North Vietnam, as China had done in the Korean War. On one side were the proponents of Lins memorials, defined in the media and the public imagination as Wolfes elitist art mullahs, draft dodgers, the future New Leftists, and, of course, followers of Jane Fonda (infamously dubbed Hanoi Jane after a trip to North Vietnam, during which she made statements condemning the U.S. military). 6. zThe Vietnam Wall Controversy, Round 3, October 1981January 1982, History on Trial, Lehigh University Digital Library, accessed April 21, 2011, https://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/trial/vietnam/r3/october/. Soldiers wounded, another 72 . 9. 16. I have a Master's degree in military history from King's College, London and my cornucopia of interests include: World War II, World War II, and World War II. Their military experience meant they had contacts far and wide, at all levels of all professions, within government and the private sector. Perhaps thats an appropriate design for those who would spit on us still. It ended with communist victory in April 1975. Millionaire H. Ross Perot made a sizeable donation. The Salute opened with a vigil Wednesday morning at the National Cathedral, where all of the nearly 58,000 names on The Wall were read by volunteers around the clock, day and night, through midnight Friday. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. Washington, D.C. As memorials are objects of public commemoration, we demand a lot of them. In addition to the accounts of its creation, sev- A lingering question of the war is what might have happened if Eisenhower and Ho had arranged a meeting; possibly, an accord could have been reached, or possibly Ho was simply seeking to limit American involvement, in order to more easily depose the Diem government. Following its dedication, Lins memorial quickly became the prototype for American war memorials. The U.S. suffered over 47,000 killed in action plus another 11,000 non-combat deaths; over 150,000 were wounded and 10,000 missing. The Civil Rights Movement had produced significant victories, but many blacks had come to describe Vietnam as a white mans war, a black mans fight. Between 1961 and 1966, black males accounted for about 13 percent of the U.S. population and less than 10 percent of military personnel but almost 20 percent of all combat-related deaths. Instead they found bitterness and discontent and they were often disliked by the public. The wars length and the growing number of casualties were fueling tensions. How did people react to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial? The 15,000 in uniforms and civvies, walked among floats, bands and baton twirlers. But the slogan has proved remarkably effective and points to a deep truth: forever is a very short time in democratic politics, writes Philip Collins. American helicopters rescued members of its embassy and flew some South Vietnamese to safety, but most were left behind. They did not like its minimalist design. American drawdown continued, with only 43,000 personnel left in-country by mid-August. 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. It was the reminder that the men who died in Vietnam all had faces and names, as well as friends and families who loved them dearly. Unlike previous wars, where only still images or short movie newsreels were available for conveying images, this was Americas first television war. The ARVN bent but did not break. We do not seek to make any statement about the correctness of the war, Scruggs said. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. Within months after he recovered from his wounds and returned to his unit, the American public was learning the details of the events at My Lai. 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. Why was the Vietnam women's memorial so significant? Scruggs and Doubek began having regular meetings with John P. Wheeler, a graduate of West Point and Harvard Business School. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a tribute to the dead of the United States ' longest, most unpopular, and least successful war. Westmoreland adopted a search-and-destroy policy to find and engage the enemy and use superior firepower to destroy him. Even white troops were beginning to protest. 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. Paul Haagas spouse, Heather Sturt Haaga, soon came forward to lend her experience in fund raising. 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. 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. They needed support, friendship and help. As soon as the design was chosen,the next step was to consider the all-important details of getting it built. The insurgency was called the National Liberation Front (PLF); however, its soldiers and operatives became more commonly known by their opponents as the Viet Cong (VC), short for Vietnamese Communists. With the jury selected, the next task was to announce and promote the competition. 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. Two U.S. helicopter units arrived in Saigon in 1961. 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. Lin vociferously objected to the inclusion of Harts piece, arguing that it violated the integrity of [her] design and created the sensation of being watched, as if one were on a golf green. As Sturken points out, this did little to evoke veterans sympathy: Lin stuck to her position as an outsider . The NVA had to take over. Kennedy saw American efforts in Southeast Asia almost as a crusade and believed increasing the military advisor program, coupled with political reform in South Vietnam, would strengthen the south and bring peace. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. The greatest challenge VVMF faced, said Doubek, was to put together a functioning organization with people who didnt know one another, people who were very young and didnt have a lot of experience. Your donation to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund will help expand our mission to honor, educate and heal. However, polls consistently showed the majority of Americans supported the war. Dana Joy Helwick explains how, and why, she uses contemporary artists as role models in her classroom. 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. The Vietnam Wall Controversy, Round 4, 1982, History on Trial, Lehigh University Digital Library, accessed April 21, 2011, https://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/trial/vietnam/r4/1982/. However, the media was not the only entity invested in the veterans compelling predicament. The memorial, located near the western end of the Mall, is a black granite V-shaped wall inscribed with the names of the approximately 58,000 men and women who were killed or missing in action. Could it heal the chasm within society, promote closure, show gratitude to those who served, comfort those in grief, and remind future generations of the toll wrought by war? Wheeler recruited others to help, starting with a group of professional men, all Vietnam or Vietnam-era veterans: George Sandy Mayo, Arthur Mosley, John Morrison, Paul Haaga, Bill Marr, John Woods and certified public accountant Bob Frank, who agreed to become VVMFs treasurer. The women soldiers the nurses suffered too. To treat the Vietnam dead like the victims of some monstrous traffic accident is more than a disservice to history; it is a disservice to the memory of the 57,000.5. By early 1980, contributions started to arrive. They set their sights in support of the clear, simple vision Scruggs outlined:to honor the warrior and not the war. They did not like the idea that it was below ground level. Civilian loss of life was also very heavy, with the lowest estimates around 415,000. As they forged a partnership with Mathias and his staff, VVMF also set out to establish other key relationships. 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 The selected design then had to go through Federal agency approval and development into finished plans. Earlier, in March 1968, the Americal Division had been involved in what became known as the My Lai Massacre, in which over 100 men, women and children were killed. He closed by saying: To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. 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. 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. At the time of the memorials design, many veterans who had been exposed to Agent Orange, a chemical weapon used by the U.S. military as an herbicide and defoliant, still suffered ongoing health problems. 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. This alliance between the veterans and their conservative defenders was a new one, forged as a direct result of the cultural battle over the memorial site. Initially the (Senators) staff was split, recalled Monica Healy, a long-time Mathias aide, on whether Mathias should take the lead and support the efforts to build the Memorial. Nonsense. Ho Chi Minh led a communist government in the north (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) with its capital at Hanoi, and a new Republic of South Vietnam was established under President Ngo Dinh Diem, with its capital at Saigon. In large part, this was accomplished through a series of conflicts waged at the level of culture.

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