What do you see in The Wall?
Sunday happens to mark the 40th anniversary of the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. I first saw it on cold day in January 1983. I found the name of a Marine I had known well inscribed among over 58,000 other names on “The Wall,“ as it is commonly known.
I devoted an early column to that Marine. His name — James L. Reaves — appears on panel 31E, line 38. He was killed on December 4, 1967. (“Jim Reaves’ life ended as it was beginning,” May 24, 2012) It had been 15 years since I left Vietnam. The events of that terrible day in late 1967 had receded, and even been somewhat repressed, in my memory. Did I live it or did I dream it? That’s how it felt by 1983. But finding Reaves’ name on the Wall somehow validated my Vietnam experiences. And it made me realize the only way I could exorcise the ghosts and demons of my past would be to write about them — which I went on to do, in a number of articles and eventually a book.
As for my initial impression of that V-shaped memorial as a whole, I remember thinking it was going to put a period to further military entanglements without the full support of the American people. I was wrong. But as I’ve been reminded recently, the meaning of any monument is finally in the eyes of the beholder.
Consider retired Army colonel Pete Peterson Jr., a two-tour Vietnam veteran. What he sees in our wall can be found in the November issue of “Military Officer,” the magazine of the Military Officers Association of America. “When we came back, we were the little redheaded stepchildren,” Peterson is quoted as saying. “So when the monument popped up, I saw it as America’s way of saying we thank you for your service, we want to acknowledge that you didn’t create the war, nor did you lose it.”
Drafted in 1962, Peterson went on to serve two tours in Vietnam. His attitude reflects how a lot of military professionals felt unappreciated and unfairly maligned throughout the Vietnam era. But I do think he is projecting those feelings onto an otherwise blank slate that serves as a kind of Rorschach Test. Those black-granite panels have a way of bringing out what viewers feel and know about our war in Vietnam.
In my experience, most of us were not as unwanted or mistreated as Peterson’s redheaded-stepchild trope would suggest, nor were we blamed for the war.
The history of the memorial, moreover, suggests it was hardly erected by Americans intent on thanking Vietnam veterans, living or dead, for their service. There would have been no Vietnam memorial but for the determined efforts of a small group of veterans headed by Jan Scruggs. His group raised $8.4 million through private donations — despite an inhospitable political climate. President Reagan and his cronies were dismissing Vietnam as an aberration. They were hoping to kick the so-called Vietnam syndrome — the main symptom of which was a reluctance to commit U.S. troops abroad. The Wall stood in their way as a reminder of the tragic toll of our last falling-dominoes misadventure. And funding just such a barrier, and not an expression of gratitude, is probably what most of the donors had in mind.
As for the Wall serving to reassure Vietnam veterans that they didn’t lose the war, I suspect Peterson subscribes to the Vietnam version of the stab-in-the-back theory — the view that our politicians lost the war, not those who fought it. A case can be made for that theory, I realize. But the Wall merely lists our losses. The case for a stolen victory lies outside it.
Again, Rorschach-wise, what I now see in the Wall is conditioned by what I’ve learned about the history and conduct of our Vietnam involvement since serving there. I see a monument to the lives tragically wasted in a war our leaders lied about and knew we couldn’t win. Feel free to tell me what you see in it.
If you have never seen our Vietnam Veterans Memorial, you should go. Every American should.
Contact Ed Palm at majorpalm@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Ed Palm: Vietnam Veteran Memorial 40 anniversary
