That's EXACTLY what everyone said about the Viet Nam Veteran's Memorial,
before it opened.

Probably said by the same sort of people who designed the WWII
memorial, and who later added the patrolling troopers (and even later
the nurse) to Maya Lin's magnificent sculpture.

There is only one Wall. I saw it one early morning before going to
work (I get up at five, which was always a problem when I was on the
road) and just stood there with tears running down my face.

The patrol had been added by that time. I rather liked the little
statues, as if these guys had just returned from an ambush and come
upon the bodies of 158,000 of their mates. That was before the nurse
came along. (Is she carrying a bedpan?) But the Wall would have been
just as good without them.

A Wall comes along only once in a century. There's no use hoping that
the WWII memorial or the Ground Zero thing will be in that class.


all the best -- Dan Ford
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