The Vietnam Memorial Wall

On Tue, 01 Jun 2004 11:46:09 -0400, Billy Beck wrote:

That Memorial is *always* the top item on my to-do list whenever
I have a spare moment in Washington.

And I've seen it at every hour of the day, but it is never so
powerful as in the middle of the night.

I've been there three times so far. It's never exactly where I expect it
to be and it always manages to sneak up on me. I'm always looking far
forward when, with a start, I realize it's slowly been rising up next to me
off to my right (I always approach it from the direction of the Capitol).

--

-Jeff B.
yeff at erols dot com

"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 01 Jun 2004 04:17:09 GMT, Guy Alcala
wrote:

Ed Rasimus wrote:

snip

"The sidewalk along the brooding black marble wall slopes gradually,
there are no steps along the way. It's almost a metaphor for the
gradualism that led us to failure. It marks the descent into the
immorality of sending men to die for a cause that the nation wants to
ignore. But when you reach the deepest point, the walk rises again and
gradually, over time returns to the level of the street and the city.
All things pass and maybe this represents a return to normalcy and
patriotism and honor; belief in your country's might and the
principles that the other soaring white monuments of Washington
commemorate. Maybe.

Gee, Ed, you can see what you see, but don't you think that making the
Memorial be accessible to those in wheelchairs (i.e. no stairs),
undoubtedly
including a considerable number of Vietnam vets who wish to visit it,
might
have played a part? I dont remember if the ADA was in effect at the time
of
its design and construction, but things were certainly moving that way.

Guy

ADA was in effect at that time.

I don't think so, Ed. ADA was enacted in 1990, about eight years after the
Memorial was dedicated. ISTR that the Federal government had its own access
guidelines for new construction in place well before ADA, though; as a young
cadet doing a Cadet Troop Leader Training tour with the Corps of Engineers
construction office at Robbins AFB in 1984, I can recall being somewhat
puzzled by the requirement to make a PAVE PAWS radar facility handicap
accessible and were providing handicap parking spots in front of it as well.

Brooks

So, we haven't removed the steps at
the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials. We just dedicated the WW II
Memorial which is white and above ground and has steps in several
places. We look up to the USMC Iwo Jima Flag-Raising statue. We stand
face to face on level ground with the Korean War Memorial.

It's a metaphor I'm using. One of those literary thingies.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

On Tue, 1 Jun 2004 11:59:54 -0400, Yeff wrote:

On Tue, 01 Jun 2004 11:46:09 -0400, Billy Beck wrote:

That Memorial is *always* the top item on my to-do list whenever
I have a spare moment in Washington.

And I've seen it at every hour of the day, but it is never so
powerful as in the middle of the night.

I've been there three times so far. It's never exactly where I expect it
to be and it always manages to sneak up on me. I'm always looking far
forward when, with a start, I realize it's slowly been rising up next to me
off to my right (I always approach it from the direction of the Capitol).

It used to catch me by surprise, too. I've gotten used to it.

Here is something that I discovered the last time I was the

If you consider the Wall (in plan view) as two long quadrangles
sharing the same line at the angle in the center of the Wall, that
line points almost directly at the statue of Albert Einstein at the
National Academy of Sciences, across Constitution Avenue. If you
stood on the sidewalk immediately adjacent to the statue and facing
with your shoulders parallel to Constitution Avenue, and then turned
to your left to about 10 o'clock and began walking, you would walk
about three hundred yards before stepping right off the top of the
Wall at its angle.


Billy

http://www.two--four.net/weblog.php

I often discover new things on new visits. On one occasion, I was
playing tourguide to a Swedish friend, who was a teenager during the
war. We parked at the Lincoln Memorial, went through it, waited for my
usual sniffles to stop (the statue is eerily magnificent), and proceeded
to the Wall.

Just as we started down the sidewalk, Kate stopped, glanced back at the
Lincoln Memorial, and said "how appropriate! is the placement of these
two mere coincidence?"

I had no idea what she meant.

"Weren't the Civil War and the Viet Nam War the times of greatest
internal turmoil of your country?"

She married an American, and is a graduate teaching assistant while she
works on her doctorate. Since the major classes she teaches are US
history, I'd be fascinated to hear how she presents this. Yes, she has
what many would consider typical European social democratic ideas, but
is also quite fair in looking at all sides -- and has lived and studied
here long enough to have more detailed knowledge of US history than many
native-born citizens.

ArtKramr wrote:
I never go to war memorials. I never go to military cemetaries. I just
start
bawling. Guess that is just that part of me that is pure coward.

"Coward"? Like hell, Art.

Speaking for myself only, I see no shame or cowardice (or anything
other than honorable) in feeling the presence of those ghosts... I think
the world would be a far better place if more people felt that way.

Far as that goes, I don't think anyone should be elegible for election
to any office higher than dogcatcher if they can keep their composure
in such a place.


Jeff

In message , Cub Driver
writes

But, the Wall
is black and buried, a depression in the ground symbolizing the
depression of the nation that did not win the war or respect the men
who fought it.

I think you're wrong on this one, Ed. To me the Wall is the most
beautiful and most moving monument anywhere in the world, the only one
I return to, and the only one that ever made me cry.

I will say that the Vietnam memorial didn't have that effect on me. But
then, it wasn't my war, and it's only through here I know folk who
fought there.

That said: it made me pause and scan the names, it made me pause and
respect the fallen, and if I didn't already have a passing acquaintance
with the conflict I'd have sought out more information.

For a foreigner, it did its job. It's a very good monument.

--
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
Julius Caesar I:2

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk

For a foreigner, it did its job.

Maya Lin was born in Athens, Ohio. Can't get more American than that!

She was a student at Yale when she won the Vietnam Memorial
competition.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com

After 30 years have passed since I came home - I still can't go to the
wall without memories and tears.

Jim

"Jim McCartan" wrote in message
om...
After 30 years have passed since I came home - I still can't go to the
wall without memories and tears.

Jim

You have my deepest sympathies. All those lives wasted just to prove that the
"domino theory" we were told was threatening our national existence was
fallacious and untrue.

After all was said and done, the North Vietnamese won the war, we left Viet Nam,
and the horrible Communists did NOT take over all of Asia. We could have let
them take over their country without sacrificing 58,000 American lives, not to
mention the hundreds of thousands of wounded and maimed young Americans and we
wouldn't have been any the worse for it.

Hindsight is wonderful in providing insight, providing one is willing to learn
from it. Those unwilling to learn from it are doomed to repeat the experience.
The current batch of Kerry bashers haven't figured out yet that he was right and
the rest of us who thought at the time that we belonged in that dogfight were
wrong.

George Z.

Hindsight is wonderful in providing insight, providing one is willing to
learn
from it. Those unwilling to learn from it are doomed to repeat the
experience.
The current batch of Kerry bashers haven't figured out yet that he was right
and
the rest of us who thought at the time that we belonged in that dogfight were
wrong.

George Z.

But he was not right in labeling vets as war criminals acting like Genghis
Khan, or his dubious throwing the medals story of which there are at least 4
versions given by him, or when his group he headed was sending fake vets to
testify about war crimes and atrocities.


Ron
Tanker 65, C-54E (DC-4)
Silver City Tanker Base