gregory_dyas

Vuk Vuksanovic writes: "that the Vietnam War Memorial itself, as it has been designed, has practically nothing about it which conveys the nation's shame"

This leads me to doubt that you've actually seen the memorial in person. Designed by a young architect in her early 20's who won an open competition for the memorial's design, the names on the wall are written on rock on a "V" shaped wall that cuts into the ground on the National Mall, creating a symbolic scar on a piece of earth that we consider representative of our democracy. One arm of the "V" points directly to the Washington Memorial, the other straight at the Lincoln Memorial, linking this ill-considered fight to both the birth of our nation and it's struggle toward equality for all. These factors in the positioning of the memorial further heighten its sorrow because it effectively links lamentation for our dead to sadness at the degree to which our country fell morally in fighting the war. To me the memorial remains all about the deadly consequences of, as George McGovern said, "old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in".