This Day in History: 13 November 2020
13 November 1982
38 years ago, today, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C., after a march to its site by thousands of veterans who served in the conflict. The long-awaited memorial was a simple V-shaped black granite wall, that was inscribed with the names of the 57,939 Americans who died in the conflict. Their names were arranged in order of death, not their rank, which was common in other memorials. It soon became one of the most visited memorials in the nation's capital. It drew together both those who fought and those who marched against the war, serving to promote national healing a decade after the conflict ended.
The designer of the memorial was Maya Lin, a Yale University architecture student who entered a nationwide competition to create a design for the monument. Lin was born in Ohio in 1959 and was the daughter to Chinese immigrants. Many veterans' groups were opposed to the winning design, as it lacked a standard memorial's heroic statutes and stirring words. However, a shift in public opinion occurred in the months after the memorial's dedication. Families of the dead and veterans visited the wall, seeking the names of their loved ones. Once the name was found, a private offering was usually left, from notes and flowers to dog tags and cans of beer.
Want to find out more about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial? Click here for more information, or here for more about Maya Lin.
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