November 13

1982 : Vietnam Veterans Memorial dedicated

Near the end of a weeklong national salute to
Americans who served in the Vietnam War, the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial is dedicated in Washington after a
march to its site by thousands of veterans of the
conflict. The long-awaited memorial was a simple
V-shaped black-granite wall inscribed with the names
of the 57,939 Americans who died in the conflict,
arranged in order of death, not rank, as was common in
other memorials.

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, born in Ohio in 1959, was the daughter
of Chinese immigrants. Many veterans' groups were
opposed to Lin's winning design, which lacked a
standard memorial's heroic statues and stirring words.
However, a remarkable shift in public opinion occurred
in the months after the memorial's dedication.
Veterans and families of the dead walked the black
reflective wall, seeking the names of their loved ones
killed in the conflict. Once the name was located,
visitors often made an etching or left a private
offering, from notes and flowers to dog tags and cans
of beer.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial soon became one of the
most visited memorials in the nation's capital. A
Smithsonian Institution director called it "a
community of feelings, almost a sacred precinct," and
a veteran declared that "it's the parade we never
got." "The Wall" drew together both those who fought
and those who marched against the war and served to
promote national healing a decade after the divisive
conflict's end.

history.com/tdih.do