The Vietnam Memorial

     Families around the world are struck with pain and sorrow due to the loved ones that did not return in the Vietnam War. Americans wanted a way to remember these warriors that put their lives down to help our country. So for this case, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was built.
     The United States have been involved in Vietnam   interactions for more than 20 years, starting on May 7, 1954 and ending on April 30, 1975. The United States troops were involved in Vietnam in 1954 but the full fledged war did not officially start until 1964. The Vietnam Memorial was then dedicated in 1982 and was built in Washington D.C. Lost family members and close friends are still honored to this day with flowers, notes, and many other close items that may have been used in the family. There are 58,256 names of the memorial, one of them being my great uncle, Charles Sargent Moore.
     The reason I chose this topic was because I have relatives that fought in the Vietnam War, such as, my grandfather, Major Raymond Tomlinson, and my great uncle, Captain Charles Sargent Moore. Charles Moore died in Vietnam, from a plane crash, and is one of the many thousand honored on the wall for veterans. I wanted to search further into Charles Moore's time in Vietnam and I found a very useful website that had letters written to him from close friends that knew him. A man by the name of Frederick S. Nicoll posted this letter to Charles Moore saying that he was a "humble" gentleman with a lovely wife and two beautiful children. Frederick was Charlies nest door neighbor and he goes on to say that even though Charles was a Captain, he wanted to be called "Charlie". There was another letter that I found that was written by a fellow pilot of Charlies, a man by the name of Jim Haslitt. Jim describes Charlie as a man who led by example and always wanting to get in on the action. He also talks about the loss of Charlie when his plane went don and he says that "we lost a fine gentleman and an outstanding officer". Every summer when I was little, my grandparents took me and my two younger brother to Washington D.C. to honor the Vietnam Memorial. As you can see in the picture below, I am pointing to my Charlies name. I know it is hard to read but if you look closely it reads, Charles S Moore. If you want to know more about Charlie, click here.

Me pointing to my great uncles name

Maya Lin and her design

     "The National Vietnam Veterans Memorial may well have generated more controversy than any work of architecture in recent history." -- Nicholas Copasso. I think this quote represents the whole controversy about the Vietnam Memorial very well. The whole controversy started from a Vietnam veteran named Jan Scruggs. Jan initiated a hard fought battle to build the memorial for the veterans in the middle to late 1970s. President Carter finally approved of this plan in July of 1980. From there, Carter announced a design competition that started on November 11, 1980 and would end on March 31, 1981. Maya Lin was then selected as the winner on May 1st of that same year.

The Vietnam statue 

     The controversy of this began almost immediately after she was elected the winner. Powerful critics, led by Tom Carhart, were enraged by this design. Tom called the design a "black gash of shame" which was an insult to the Vietnam Veterans. Senator Warner conducted a meeting to add an additional flag and statue to Lin's design but that was not placed into it until later. Lin was not too happy about the changes in her design though because she thought it would violate the honor of her work. So another meeting was conducted by the Commission of Fine Arts to discuss the location of the statue and the flag. After the dedication of the flag and the statue in 1984, the move for a women's memorial was initiated. But when the Commision of Fine Arts rejected the plan to place changes in the design, congressional actions authorized a bill for the memorial and its location that was passed in November 1989.
     It is amazing to me that so much controversy and disagreement can take place to honor the loved ones that did not return from the travesties of the Vietnam War. Although I may not understand the hardships from the construction of this memorial, I do understand the hardships of the family members that lost loved ones. As I said earlier in the paper, my great uncle was one of the many thousand that did not return. I still remember the times I spent with my grandparents when I was younger when they took me to see the memorial. My grandfather loved seeing these kinds of things because he is a Vietnam veteran also. Still today, thousands of people visit the memorial to remember the loved ones lost and place close memoirs such as flowers, notes, and many others.