Keep, Change, or Destroy the Vietnam War Memorial?

At the age of 21 Maya Lin created the design for one of the most historic and controversial memorial honoring the lives of the soldiers that were killed or went missing at the Vietnam War from 1954-1975. Why is a memorial such a controversial topic, we are honoring the United States Armed Forces?

The Vietnam Memorial Fund sponsored a nationwide competition in search for a memorial that would pay tribute to the soldiers that sacrificed their life during the war. In 1982 the memorial, “The Wall”, was completed. This new design plan created by Maya Lin, who was a senior at Yale University at the time, challenged the typical heroic statue memorials that were previously built to commemorate historical events. This competition received more than 1,400 submissions of designs; anonymously one was chosen to be built. As silly as it may seem for the unconventional design to be such a controversial topic, it is!

Let’s talk a little about the design by Lin. Located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. each wall is 246 feet 9 inches long; where the sides of the angle meet it is 10 ft 3 inches high.The names of over 58,00 men and women who either died or went missing in action, are listed In a V-shape design of the black granite walls. Unlike other conventional memorials or monuments, this wall was built inside the ear, you are walking at the same level as the walls, it lies close to the ground. Typically memorials are built exaggeratedly and massively tall, where viewers can only look up to admire and honor the person or event. Why did the design make so many people upset? One of the arguments was starting off with the color, signifying death and no victory from veterans. Which quite frankly seems silly to me. Nonetheless, people were expecting a much more grandiose and intricate monument compared to other statues that were already there prior. For example, the Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson memorials.

With her design Maya Lin wanted to provide a nuanced way to remember and interact with monuments and with the Vietnam War. Without a singular person representing the entirety of a traumatic historical event, she wanted to highlight every single person that sacrificed their life, giving more meaningful interactions when seeing all the names while looking at yourself through the reflection. Critics argued that this was an awful manner to commemorate the fallen soldiers, using race, age, and experience of Lin against her. Accusing her of being too young to truly understand the war and what it meant for the country. They also refused to believe it proper for someone of Asian heritage to design a monument for soldiers that died in Asia territory. People used the media to express their outrage. In a podcast Patrick Buchanan and Congressman Henry Hyde launched a WHOLE campaign to push for Lin’s original idea to be changed to a white wall instead of black and add an 8 foot statue of soldiers. Of course Lin was absolutely not in agreement with their statements, for they were tainting her originality. She had already won the anonymous contest for the design. Is this a valid reason for Americans to be upset about the designer? Would the same amount of discontent have occurred if the design came from a white man, a white male?

Hence all the mixed feelings about the memorial design that didn’t meet the public’s expectation, they were creating a very difficult time to get Lin’s design started. In an attempt to compromise The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, who was overseeing the final design, decided to add a sculpture to the site. This is known as the “Three Soldiers” and later in 1993 a tribute to women’s contribution to serving in the military was added. Without a doubt Maya Lin did not agree with the compromise. She then realized that this really had little to do with her work but rather it was a political and racial discussion. It’s almost like diminishing her creativity and original artwork by adding those statues around her work. It completely changes the perception of Lin’s memorial; it creates a new narrative that she did not intend for her work to have. It was clear that the original artist of this memorial was not happy about the changes that were being made to HER artwork. Yet it still happened!

As I was searching the internet about the Vietnam War memorial, “The Wall” can you guess how many times Maya Lin was mentioned as the creator of this monument? You guessed it not many, unless I searched specifically with her name then lots of articles would come up about why this was so controversial. One that really stood out was a government website on National Park Service, there was a quick youtube video introducing the monument. In that minute and 16 seconds Lin was not mentioned. Usually, when something is controversial with an artwork, the artist is immediately linked to the work and the name follows everywhere. Not here though, credit isn’t given where I believe it should!

Why were people so opposed to a memorial that was unconventional and different than what they are used to? Why did they feel like they needed to dictate the outcome? Did the majority of this country use their power to get what they wanted, despite her work being picked anonymously through a nationwide competition? Why were they allowed to interject in an artist’s work? Would they do this to someone who looked different than her? Should we, as a community, stand up for Lin’s original work and interject with the statues added?