Two U.S. helicopter units arrived in Saigon in 1961. Why was the Vietnam Memorial so controversial? - Yoforia.com As a first step, VVMF retained architect Paul Spreiregen to serve as the Professional Advisor for the competition. But can America truly mean that we should feel honored by that black pit?6. Why the Battle for Hamburger Hill Was So Controversial. By the end of 1967, there were 540,000 American troops in Vietnam, and the military draft was set to call up 302,000 young men in the coming year, an increase of 72,000 over 1967. The Vietnam War: Facts & Info About the Most Controversial - HistoryNet 14. The French suffered a major defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, leading to negotiations that ended with the Geneva Agreements, July 21, 1954. 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. Ibid. When Scruggs went to see the movie in early 1979, it wasnt the graphic war scenes that haunted him. . Many people will not comprehend this design until they experience it. On January 21, 1970, Jan Scruggs was having his morning cup of coffee, but he was far from his kitchen table at home. He found that returning veterans were finding it hard to trust people. Population in the south was mostly clustered in a few areas along the coast; the north always enjoyed a larger population. As Scruggs analyzed the concept of collective psychological states, he realized that, just as veterans needed psychological healing, so too did the nation. 1. On April 27, 1979, Doubek incorporated the fledgling entity, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, and Scruggs asked him to be an officer and director. North Vietnam It was the Senators gut feeling that we needed to do this., This was serious business, Mathias said. Ho Chi Minh had been educated in Paris. Some felt that the money to build a memorial could be better spent delivering the many services veterans needed. Because Warner was from Virginia and Mathias from Maryland, the two had worked together on many regional issues. A different feeling prevailed among many within the U.S. government. It seemed every time they contacted someone, they were greeted with enthusiasm for the idea. The vision of VVMF is to ensure a society in which all who have served and sacrificed in our nation's Armed Forces are properly honored and receive the recognition they justly deserve. 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. A few preliminary concepts were embraced. On August 2, two North Vietnamese torpedo boats in broad daylight engaged USS Maddox, which was gathering communications intelligence in the Gulf of Tonkin. As Michael Clark points out in the essay, Remembering Vietnam, by the late 1960s, Hollywood and the mass media seized on this aspect of the veteran experience, creating variations of a fictionalized veteran who threatened at every moment to bring the war home with him in the form of flashbacks that turned firecrackers into artillery and passersby into the enemy.10 In Clarks analysis, these depictions of veterans served, for nonmilitary American citizens, as a way to launder the violence of the war by relegating it to some other place: Southeast Asia, and the [veterans] psychotic unconscious.11 Such representations enabled film viewers to reframe their experiences of the contemporaneous violence occurring at home, on American soil. They were real guys. It was the most thoughtful and thorough discussion of design that I have ever heard, and I have heard many, he recalled. Revisiting the terms of this conflict not only provides insight into how and why visual art came to be so politicized in the 1980s, but also sheds light on the debates of our present historical moment, which, in many ways, parallel the debates of that period regarding the social purpose of art. The selected design then had to go through Federal agency approval and development into finished plans. Both the Army of the Republic of South Vietnam (ARVN) and the VC used torture, to extract information or to cowl opposition. Using his findings, he testified at the Senate hearing on the Veterans Health Care Amendments Act of 1977, with the hope that he could help veterans gain access to the services and support they needed. The military dog tags, flowers, war medals, photographs, and even favorite toys left behind aid the healing process. The wars length and the growing number of casualties were fueling tensions. Based on a program the British had employed successfully against insurgents in Malaya, it didnt work in Vietnam. They came from all parts of the country and represented every state. 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. The reputation of the jurors was important to attract the best designers and to minimize second guessing by the Federal approval bodies. The controversy overshadowed the mission and what we were doing, until the Salute brought it all together. This 21-Year-Old College Student Designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Washington, D.C. Aerial view. An ad hoc group of veterans had scheduled a meeting to try to use Vietnam Veterans Week to generate publicity for veterans need, and Scruggs thought that would be a good time to announce his plans. Even white troops were beginning to protest. 4) It defied spatial perception. Larry Century, a young inventor from Cleveland, Ohio,was selected to serve as a consultant to Binswanger Glass Company in Memphis, Tennessee, which was awarded the contract for inscribing the names. 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. When Lin asked how many Smiths would be on The Wall, the team realized how important the chronological listing was to the design. 18. 1. Scruggs would never forget the awful scene. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. Social critics and commentators quickly picked up and elaborated on Carharts characterization of the memorial. The proposed Vietnam memorial was a . 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. The two sections were not unlike North and South in the United States prior to the Civil War; their people did not fully trust each other. Mathias and Warner continued to rally support and ferry the legislation. On June 11, 1963, an elderly Buddhist monk named Thich Quang Duc sat down in the street in front of a pagoda in Saigon to protest Diems policies. In an interview he was asked if there was light at the end of the tunnel, and he responded that the U.S. and its allies had turned a corner in Vietnam. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. But the meeting gave Scruggs his first ally: former Air Force intelligence officer and attorney Robert Doubek, who thought a memorial was a good idea. 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/. Selecting a design that would meet the criteria demanded a jury that could grasp the significance of the Memorials purpose and understand the unique needs of Vietnam veterans, their families, and a country divided. In an article in the Washington Post, writer Tom Wolfe defined the debate over the inclusion of Harts figurative memorial as a story of art experts and the Vietnam veteransand of how the veterans asked for a war memorial and wound up with an enormous pit they now refer to as a tribute to Jane Fonda. The Memorials walls point to the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial, thus bringing the Memorial into the historical context of our country. 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 responded quickly, recapturing lost ground and decimating an enemy who had finally come out to fight in the open. Communist losses were extremely heavy. She is still remembered fondly by veterans for the moving Memorial she designed for them. Because he possessed great knowledge of history, he understood the extensive healing process required after war. The body count policy fell into disfavor and was not employed in future American wars; in Vietnam it led officers to inflate enemy casualties. That afternoon, the winning design was selected, said Spreiregen. (Some in the North Vietnamese government thought the course of war in the south was unwise, but they were overruled.) Laos, South Vietnam: 850,000 Only a few, such as the St. Louis Gateway Arch, part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, had been the result of open competitions. Learn more about featured topics of the Vietnam War and Vietnam Era. North Vietnam was a prodigy of both the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Red China. Ruling out an invasion of North Vietnam assured that a purely military victory would not be possible, a fact that was at odds with many Americans expectations for the war. A chronological listing would also allow a returning veteran to find his or her time of service on The Wall and those who died together to remain together forever on The Wall. The VC was effectively finished; it would not field more than 25,00040,000 troops at any time for the remainder of the war. But instead of enthusiasm, he received skepticism. Thirty years later, it is difficult to think of her memorial as a controversial work of art. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was built without government funds. When I meet Vietnam veterans who stop me to say thank you for creating the Memorial, I always want to say: thank you, for the service and sacrifices that all of you have made in service to your country, she added. Why was the Vietnam War Memorial so controversial? - 2023 He would never forget those friends. (Ten times as many Vietnamese had fled the north, where the Communist Party was killing off its rivals, seizing property, and oppressing the large Catholic population.) 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. Working with the construction manager, GilbaneBuilding Company, the design team had to locate the appropriate type of granite: a flawless, reflective, deep ebony stone. Once Scruggs decided to build the memorial, the next step was to get some people behind him. 4: The Artistic Controversy, 3/1982-11/1985 >>>>> 1988. The designs were received and processed in a large warehouse east of Washington. It set the tone for the ensuing cultural debates pitting the people against the elites, as found in Tom Wolfes criticism of Lins memorial design. The walls are inscribed with the names of more than 58,000 men and women . Also known as "America's Longest War," U.S. involvement in Vietnam War did not end until 1973. 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 . Their motto is: Honor the dead by serving the living. Volunteering to assist VVMF was an ideal opportunity for Cupp to do just that. With permit in hand, Doubek instructedto commence construction immediately. 10. One day in October 1969, fifteen members of the Americal Division wore black armbands while they were on patrol, the symbol antiwar protestors wore in the states. Scruggs and Doubek realized that Cupp could be instrumental in helping communicate the all-important personal, emotional side of the healing story. Although differences in the two bills required a Conference Committee to meet, on July 1, at a White House Rose Garden ceremony, President Jimmy Carter signed legislation providing two acres for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall. I had calculated that it was possible to see all of them in a minimum of 3 1/2 hours. Watt followed on March 11, 1982, by granting permission for the construction permits. He had been a war correspondent during World War II and had reported from Vietnam during Americas early involvement. For weeks, heated discussions took place around the topic of who should be part of the design jury. He organized the advisors and volunteers into task groups: public relations, financial management, fund raising, legislation, site selection, and design/construction. They werent nice. Just, Why was the vietnam war memorial so controversial? Emphasis switched to Vietnamization, preparing South Vietnams military to take over responsibility for continuing the war. 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. Some observers attributed this factor to Maya Lins presence on the jurying panel, which also included victims families, political appointees, curators, and other artists.17 It was even announced at one point that Walkers and Arads design resembled a sketch that Lin had made for the sort of memorial that might be placed at the site.18 Like Lins design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Reflecting Absence was criticized for failing to incorporate any representations of human figures, its minimal design interpreted as a rejection of codes of heroism.19 In a practical reenactment of the negotiation of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the addition of a representational statue of three firefighters hoisting a flag at Ground Zero was proposed. It would have power for individual veterans, but collectively, they would have even greater power to show the enormity of the sacrifices that were made.. The idea for a memorial seemed like a natural extension of his work and his growing desire to find a way to help veterans. Letters came from moms, dads, grandparents, sons and daughters with heartfelt notes accompanied by checks and dollar bills. It was such a great cause, and they were bound and determined to make it happen.. 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. It seemed unconscionable that heor anyone elseshould be allowed to forget. The names of the eight women who died in Vietnam are included on the list of over 58,000 names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. They would include a big National Salute to Vietnam Veterans at Veterans Day. 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. Ibid. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. On the other hand, Congress had never declared war and so the president was limited in what he could do in Southeast Asia. Support for the war eroded further. The Gold Star Mothers is a group of mothers whose sons or daughters have died serving their country. Critics of Lins design proposed that a second work be included on the memorial site, as a solution to the problem of the original memorial design: a figurative bronze statue by Frederick Hart of three soldiers in uniform, which had placed third in the initial competition. Out of the nearly fifteen hundred entries in the competition, the eight jurors of the selection committee unanimously chose Maya Lins design on May 6, 1981. In December Doubek became the Executive Director, working on a half-time basis for the first few months, and opened the VVMF office on January 2, 1980. At the time, well-managed open design competitions were common in Europe, but not in the United States. One example, cited in Grab Their Belts to Fight Them: The Viet Congs Big-Unit War Against the U.S., 19651966, by Warren Wilkins, is a description of the first major battle between the VC and American ForcesU.S. The National Park Service archives most of the nonperishable items left at The Wall. 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 fact, throughout the 1970s, there was little political impetus on any front to address these shortcomings. The whole week was extremely emotional, Becky Scruggs remembered. It claimed,In one day of ferocious fighting we had eliminated from the field of battle a total of 919 American troops, had knocked out 22 enemy vehicles and 13 helicopters, and had captured one M-14 rifle. Marine losses actually were 45 dead, 203 wounded, and a few vehicles damaged. Just before Christmas 1979, Warner hosted a fundraising breakfast in his Georgetown home. Ironically, the leadership of North Vietnam came to a similar conclusion: they had to inflict enough casualties on Americans to end support for the war on the U.S. homefront and force a withdrawal before the U.S. could build up sufficient numbers of men and material to defeat them. My background was relatively modest, he said. Although Americas war in Vietnam failed to salvage the Republic of South Vietnam, it bought time in which neighboring countries improved their economies and defensive capabilities, and it may have discouraged greater communist activism in places like the Philippines. They found that they were very real people who did many of the same things they did, recalled Spreiregen. Jan Scruggss and VVMF members desire for a memorial that would heal the social rifts wrought by the war was wishful thinking. History of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial - Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund Lower Manhattan must not be transformed into a vast mausoleum, obviously, but neither must it be transformed into a theme park for advanced architectural taste.15, Such rhetoric spilled over from the initial debates surrounding the redevelopment of the site of the Twin Towers to those regarding the design for the memorial. We expect them to do the work of history writing, to draw single comprehensible narratives out of a Gorgons nest of individual, often contradictory, experiences. 8. News footage showed the fighting in Saigon and Hue. In fact, he would spend a lifetime trying to honor their memory. The memorial was built to honor that spirit and the sacrifice of so many who gave everything they had to give. VVMF met the prospective jurors and scrutinized their credentials. Popular dark tourism attractions include Auschwitz, Chernobyl and Ground Zero. 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. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial: from Controversy to Healing It was becoming apparent that we had been able to be instruments to something far greater than anything we had ever imagined.. When the time came, however, Diem resisted the elections; the more populous north would certainly win. It just resonated, he explained. Republican Richard Nixon won the presidency in the fall elections. Marita Sturken, The Aesthetics of Absence: Rebuilding Ground Zero, American Ethnologist 31, no. At 21 and still an undergraduate, Linconceived her design as creating a park within a park a quiet protected place unto itself, yet harmonious with the overall plan of Constitution Gardens. Maya Lin was practically a kid when her design was selected to become the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, DC.