For the many reasons mentioned earlier, veterans returning from Vietnam did not receive appropriate recognition for their sacrifice.  Although many people in the country wanted to leave the Vietnam War behind us, in 1980 one veteran, Jan Scruggs, was determined to have a memorial built to honor the Vietnam veterans.

At age 19 Jan Scruggs was drafted and sent to Vietnam, where he saw roughly half of his company killed, and he was wounded.  Thoughts of the Vietnam war haunted Scruggs, and he just couldn’t accept the fact that there was no national appreciation for Vietnam veterans, especially those who had been killed.  Jan Scruggs realized the nation was divided over Vietnam, but he felt the time was right to mend our hearts and honor the veterans.

Jan Scruggs was neither a designer nor an architect, but he had specific guidelines that he wanted for the memorial.  He felt it was critical that the memorial have the names of every person who was killed, it had to be acceptable to every American, it had to cost the government no money, and it had to be based in Washington in order to be a truly national memorial.

Earning money to build the memorial quickly became a problem as initial efforts produced very little.  Fortunately, Jan Scruggs was soon joined by two other Vietnam veterans, Robert Doubek and John Wheeler, both attorneys.  Soon thereafter, they established the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund with goals of finding a location, choosing a design, and setting a deadline of November 11, 1982 for dedication.

The men of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund met with Senator Charles Mathias, who introduced a bill to donate land along Constitution Boulevard.  The bill passed both houses of Congress and the first goal had been met.  The location was set and the dream was one step closer to becoming a reality.

H. Ross Perot, a wealthy Texas businessman, who would later twice run for President, made the first substantial donation.  As money continued to come in as a result of a mass mailing drive, the VVMF representatives decided to hold a contest for design proposals.  They also developed a panel of judges consisting of accomplished artists and designers to choose the design.

Meanwhile, a class of senior architecture students at Yale, having just completed a study of memorials, were told by their college professor, Andrus Burr, that part of their assignment for that semester was to design a memorial for the VVMF competition.  One student, Maya Lin, from Athens, Ohio knew nothing about the war in Vietnam, even though she was 16 years old when it ended.  She did, however, have an interest in modern design and soon went to Washington to walk around the chosen site.  While walking around the site and taking pictures, Lin later reported, “The design sort of popped into my head.”  Maya Lin soon sketched her design and presented it to Professor Burr who made important suggestions improving the design and clarifying the order in which the names should appear.  Lin revised her design to meet her professors suggestions and sent it to the selection committee.  For her school project, Maya Lin’s work was graded a B. One month later, Maya Lin received word that her design had won.  She met the news casually, with no excitement.

Money was starting to come in faster and faster, and the organizers went to work verifying the names to be etched on the wall and hiring an architect to construct it, while trying to meet the deadline.  A significant hurdle that had to be leaped was determining how to carve the names into the stone.  Fortunately, a young inventor from Cleveland, Ohio developed a way to blast the names into the granite in a relatively quick manner.  Everything seemed to be in place and the goal was getting close to being met.

Unfortunately, a controversy arose about the design as many veterans and others didn’t like it and they tried to get the project vetoed.  After months of haggling, compromises were proposed which upset the 21-year old Maya Lin, but veterans Scruggs, Doubek, and Wheeler realized if they were to honor the veterans by their deadline they had to make concessions.  The committee agreed to place a flag and a statue of three servicemen designed by Frederick Hart at the entrance to the plaza, but away from the wall.  Sculptor Frederick Hart could not possibly finish his work by November 11, 1982, although the compromise agreement stated he must.  The Department of Interior conceded to allow the sculpture to be finished later.  Final work then began on the wall and the goal of having the dedication on November 11, 1982 was met.  Over 150,000 veterans attended dedication ceremonies that weekend.

The statue of the three soldiers by Frederick Hart was dedicated in 1984.  Still upset over the compromise, Maya Lin decided not to attend.

In the mid-1980’s another controversy swirled around the Vietnam Memorial as a group known as the Vietnam Women‘s Memorial Project pursued the addition of a womens memorial to honor the over 12,000 women who served in Vietnam, most as nurses.  Ask any male veteran and he will tell you of the enormous sacrifice women made in all wars.  Sadly, in the mid-1980’s there was no memorial honoring the service of women in any war, let alone Vietnam.  Still, many people opposed the addition of a women’s memorial and a battle was waged in Congress and with the Fine Arts Commission.  Maya Lin testified against the addition of the women’s memorial, but Congress eventually approved the addition.  A beautiful sculpture by Glenna Goodacre, portraying three women, one helping a wounded soldier was finally dedicated on November 11, 1993.  Like the statue of the three soldiers, the Women’s Memorial is placed far from the Wall.
In full, the Vietnam Memorial consists of the three monuments.   Millions of people have visited the Vietnam Memorial and today it is the most visited memorial in Washington.

Maya Lin, the designer of the Wall, graduated from high school, Yale University, attended Harvard, and later earned her Master’s degree from Yale University.  An excellent education, no doubt.  Amazingly, though, she was never taught about the war in Vietnam.  Further, she had no interest in reading about it.  Maya Lin is not unlike millions of students across the country.  The Wall is a magnificent memorial and it has helped bring healing to thousands of people, especially veterans, but the Wall without learning is just a wall.  It takes on no meaning to future generations unless they learn about the war, and learn about the sacrifices made on their behalf.  That’s why teaching about the war is so important -- so it won’t be repeated.  People look at the names on the Wall and care that they died, but I want them to care that they lived.  I want students to learn what their lives were like and what they experienced in Vietnam.  It’s only through learning about the war that the Wall takes on true meaning, which will hopefully lead to the absence of future war memorials.