I'm too young to have been a part of the memorial's debate, but when I saw it I found it very moving and appropriate.

Maybe it's just because expectations have been set so low, but I would not object to something like the Vietnam Memorial for the victims of 9/11.

Just because they're fer it, doesn't mean I'm agin' it.

The Vietnam memorial is moving, but it only commemorates the dead. Wars involve many more people, of course, than those who are killed. A war memorial typically should also honor the contributions of all of the soldiers, and of the civilians, and inspire admiration for the goals the people intended to achieve by fighting the war. The absence of such elements from the Vietnam memorial implies that the contributions of the soldiers and the civilians weren't worth honoring, and neither were the goals of the war.

But now the New Media defeated the anti-American IFC.

Not so fast.

I wasn't old enough to know much about Nam when it was going on, but if I were doing a memorial, I'd have done a conventional statue/human figure design, only it would be a kick-ass American soldier done up in quasi super-hero style, like Thor only more clean-cut, and have him driving a knife through the heart of an enemy that represents Communism, some snivelling bastard that's designated with the big star or something.

Simple. To the point. A little jingoistic, sure, but that's probably why they're not asking me to do the memorials.

I dunno, Ace. When I visited the memorial, it seemed a fitting tribute; anti-war, perhaps, but with a quiet dignity. Surely not in the manner the IFC, with its blatant damning of America.

That there wasn't much in the way of symbolism honoring those who served didn't seem as much a deliberate snub to them, as it did an acknowledgement that the whole affair was a pretty dark chapter of our history. That's not the fault of those who served, but it just never seemed to be the sort of thing we'd rightfully trumpet about in the manner of our actions in WWII.

But that's the point, isn't it? The left set the narrative: first they declares the war "lost", and thus it was, even though US forces had not been defeated in the field, and were never really allowed to take the fight to the enemy. Then they declared that it was a "dark chapter", and thus it became one - essentially wiping out countless acts of heroism and bravery by soldiers, sailors airmen and marines. Vietnam became all about My Lai and gettin' high. Fraggings and other bad behaviour.

A "lost" war is a tricky thing to memorialize - how do you tell a grunt without a leg that his sacrifice was less memorial-worthy than a similarly injured vet of WW II? In a way, the real Vietnam memorial is the ass-kicking post-Vietnam military, built so carefully by men like Creighton Abrams, Elmo Zumwalt, Colin Powell, "Brute" Krulak, Tom Magruder and Norm Schwartzkopff. Fittingly, two of the most visible symbols of that rebuilding are named for men who helped bring about that rebuilding - the M-1 (Abrams) and the F-14 (Tom's Cat). So I guess in a way every time an M-1 blows some muj scambag to smithereens or an F-14 drops a JDAM on Fallujah, it is a "living" memorial to Vietnam.

I guess I think that the Wall is an OK memorial to the dead (though errily similar to WW II German cemetaries - but does nothing for the living. 50,000 Americans died over there, but many more served and deserve to be remembered as more than losers and psychos in an Oliver Stone flick.

Holy sh*t - what a tangent!

My recollection was that there was a great deal of controversy about the design. A large part of it was that the designer was of Vietnamese descent.

As for the Memorial being 'defeatist' - I'm not quite sure how that plays out in point of fact that, unlike Pinkerton's other cites, Korea and WWII, we still had troops in Korea fifty years after the fact when that piece of architecture was being designed and WWII was clearly a win.

The Vietnam Memorial was built less than 10 years after the last helicopter left the US Embassy. So, I'm not sure exactly what the hell National Review wanted .... a VFW Post with Hueys, Artillery Pieces, and Tanks on the Mall? Free beer for Vietnam vets?

I think the Wall is effective, to me it certainly isn't 'defeatist' unless absence of a proclamation of victory constitutes 'defeat'.

In which case, the Jefferson Memorial is equally "defeatist."

I guess I think that the Wall is an OK memorial to the dead (though errily similar to WW II German cemetaries - but does nothing for the living. 50,000 Americans died over there, but many more served and deserve to be remembered as more than losers and psychos in an Oliver Stone flick.

But in the end...we lost that one. Albeit through the ineptitude of the politicians, not the soldiers, but the net outcome was the same - a Communist Vietnam. Given the prevailing sentiments of the time, a memorial to the heroic actions of the soldiers would've been a pretty tough sell.

Perhaps it's worth reexamining now, and giving these guys their due while they're still alive. But in a climate where something like the IFC's proposal can even bear consideration, it's hard to imagine it'd be any easier to sell than it was before..

I still want to know why its taking these losers so long to re-build the Twin Towers.
I know, they're secretly hoping that we surrender to the Islamists, so thye can build a new Haram-esh-Sharif style mosque on Ground Zero.

The Wall was expected to become a memorial of defeat. (Whether that was the designer's intention I don't know, but the commentary on it definitely leaned in that direction. Whether the commentator thought that was a good thing - "America must always remember this shameful chapter!" - or not.)

That it hasn't, I think, is due entirely to the way people reacted to it. They approached it, made rubbings of the names, left flowers and other gifts at the foot of the wall.... If people hadn't interacted with it in this way, if the way you appreciated the Wall was just to stand at a distance and look at it, I think it would in fact have become a monument to how evil and sick America was and is.

From the link in Allah's comment:

"But within an hour of [Pataki's] statement [that removed the center from the cultural building], the [International Freedom C]enter declared itself to be out of business."

Damning evidence that they were not interested in creating an actual "freedom center", but were simply intent on co-opting Ground Zero for their own ends.

I have never felt more vindicated.

I was always kinda partial to the Kentucky Vietnam Memorial:

"The design concept is in the form of a large sundial. The stainless steel gnomon casts its shadow upon a granite plaza. The names of 1,103 Kentuckians lost in the war are engraved into the plaza, including 23 missing in action. Each name is placed so that the tip of the shadow touches his name on the anniversary of his death, thus giving each fallen veteran his personal Memorial Day."

Clever, without being cutesy. Solemn, without being morbid.

You're a bit off base on this one Ace, though I agree with the comment that the memorial is "errily similar to WW II German cemetaries." I visited many of the latter when I lived in Europe in the 1960s and was always struck by theit sombre, black stonework and grim architecture.

That said, I think the Vietnam Memorial is redeemed by the sclupture of the three soldiers, and the later sculpture of the nurses, that grace the site. Remember how the Left howled that this would ruin their anti-war slab? It didn't, and makes the Memorial a fitting tribute to those who fought and died -- and that's what war memorials are all about.

Similarly, you can't saw that the Korean war Memorial is wrong either. It also captures the Zeitgeist of that part of the Cold War.

Finally, the Left has not had an unbroken string of wins on the Memorial Front. An outraged moderate and conservative citizenry never let the Enola Gay NASM atrocity get off the ground, and a very traditional WWII monument now graces the Capitol Mall.

We could be doing a lot worse. And Jael, with your "how evil and sick America was and is," unless I grossly miss your intent, "Stick it where the sun don't shine."

Oh, Kadnine, that is deeply cool. And just conceptual enough to squeak past the post-moderns.

jaed, maybe they should've surrounded it with barbed wire? or a sneeze shield?

That said, I think the Vietnam Memorial is redeemed by the sclupture of the three soldiers, and the later sculpture of the nurses, that grace the site. Remember how the Left howled that this would ruin their anti-war slab? It didn't, and makes the Memorial a fitting tribute to those who fought and died -- and that's what war memorials are all about.

Uh, yeah, but you're sorta making the point. The left just wanted the bleak wall of death. It took a fight to get something approaching a heroic sculpture put up, and that statue is pretty sad.

Perhaps fitting, but the statue is of weary men slogging through despair.

Pinkerton's point, though, is not about what you think about the Wall. It's about the more-or-less unfettered power of the left to impose its version of art and memorials upon society, and how that power has been sharply curtailed as of late.

The thing about a war memorial is that it is (duh) a memorial. It is to make you remember something. That's why I was so dead-set against the so-called "Crescent of Embrace" in Shanksville: I don't much care what the artist intended so much as how most people would take it. And a red crescent as a war memorial just ain't gonna do it, folks -- not when the religoius symbol of their killers was...a red crescent. Unintentional or no, that's no way to remember the sacrifice of those people who were murdered on that day.

How do we choose to remember those people? As strong and resolute Americans, fighting an enemy, giving the last full measure of devotion to a praiseworthy cause? Or do we put up some weepy sodden "woe! woe!" memorial that completely whitewashes the cause for which they died?

Symbols are important, folks. They are the avatars of memory.

"Uh, yeah, but you're sorta making the point. The left just wanted the bleak wall of death. It took a fight to get something approaching a heroic sculpture put up, and that statue is pretty sad. . . . Perhaps fitting, but the statue is of weary men slogging through despair."

I did think about my comment concerning the Memorial statues before making it. I don't think we disagree. But when you lose big like we did in Vietnam -- thanks to the Left in large part -- there isn't much to celebrate. You can only commemorate the losses and the sacrifice. It's only for that reason that the Vietnam Memorial is "OK"; Cripes, what else could we focus on? We lost.

At this point, however, let's celebrate some victories. The defeat of the despicable IFC is a great win in the culture war that we've had ever since Vietnam. Sure, it's like turning a supertanker in a typhoon, but we're getting it done. I'm a helluva lot happier being a post-middle age American in 2005 than I was being a 20-something in 1975.

"The avatars of memory".

I like that. Nicely-turned phrase.

A decent war memorial, IMO, should glorify the goals and accomplishments of the war while acknowledging the costs. It should venerate the sacrifices by reminding us of what what they were for. It should fuse the cost and the cause in a noble style. Memorials are about meaning.

"Defeatist" may not be precisely the right word, but it's pretty close. The Vietnam Memorial is a grief wallow, an Oprah-sized roll call of names while taps plays in the background. Whay did they die? What good were we fighting for? The memorial might as well be for road fatalities for all the meaning it gives for those deaths.

It's a monument to what elite and venomously anti-anti-Communist talkers thought of the war. Put me down on the side that thinks our guys deserved better.

Yes, it was controversial before it opened, but afterward, I don't know anyone who wasn't extemely moved by it. As far as honoring the living, I believe most of them were honored by having a memorial for their buddies that they could visit. There is something so much more tangible in seeing a name that you can touch than any statute can convey.

Wow! a nice discussion going on here.

Put me down on the side that thinks our guys deserved better.

Me too. Of course it's moving. If you have a heart at all, you can't help but be moved by it.

Contrast it with the Marine Corps War Memorial and the difference is very easy to see.

If you ever go see it, walk across the street and spend some time at Arlington National Cemetery.

It's a sober place.

Redhand made the point that I had wanted to make about the statues.

I also feel that people are misreading jaed's comments. I find them to be very positive. The sickness and evil he/she spoke of was the sickness and evil of the Left, who were overwhelmingly sympathetic to the Communist cause during the Vietnam war.

Through the constant reminder of this "avant garde" memorial, they wanted us to feel as sick and evil as they were, almost like a transferral of guilt via projection.

Instead of falling prey to their intentions, though, we did what real Americans do: we turned something bad into something good. We came and mourned our dead at that black wall, and when we saw our reflections, we saw people looking back at us who were caring and loving, instead of the "bourgeois" monsters that the Left wanted us to see.

It's kind of corny, but this captures a lot of the feelings I have about memorial.

Pardon me, the memorial.

exactly Sue. We changed it.

Cripes, what else could we focus on? We lost.

WE DID NOT LOSE!Do we have to repeat the lies of the left? There is a world of difference between losing and quitting. I would rather we had lost because there is honor in losing but there is no honor in quitting. The men and women who sacrificed to do the bidding of their country in Vietnam never lost anything and I suspect if it was up to them they wouldn't have quit until the job was finished.

"There is a world of difference between losing and quitting."

Not from the perspective of the South Vietnamese, there isn't. (I assume. Not being one myself, I can't know for sure).

Not from the perspective of the South Vietnamese

No shit, Sherlock. But don't say it's because we lost. That is a lie. The politicians quit.

And Jael, with your "how evil and sick America was and is," unless I grossly miss your intent, "Stick it where the sun don't shine."

You do in fact grossly miss my intent, as well as misspelling my handle. "How evil and sick" is the message that the Wall was expected to stand for, and it should have been obvious that such a message is one I would have disagreed with, rather vociferously.

And next time, might I suggest that if you're not sure about intent, you might want to save the "Stick it" remarks until you are sure.

"Cripes, what else could we focus on? We lost."

WE DID NOT LOSE! Do we have to repeat the lies of the left? There is a world of difference between losing and quitting.

We were undermined at home by a constant recitation of costs, costs, costs and a gross underreporting of what those costs were buying. Tet was a shocking military triumph, but you would never have known that at home. And even after we withdrew and the slaughter started, the noble aims we had so rightly pursued were airily dismissed if they were acknowleged at all. (Sound like a familiar M.O.?)

The wall is like that too. Who isn't moved by the cost it enshrines? But I missed the part that says, "We gave our lives and innocence for strangers' innocent lives. We died to hold back murderous evil." I'm sure something like that can be said more tactfully, implied in facial expressions or heroic postures or even in lowly text. But it isn't said at all. If you want a sense of meaning for all of the death the wall commemorates, you have to bring it with you. That isn't the way monuments should work.

It seems to me the wall embodies exactly the thing that made the war turn tragic instead of triumphant. And I hope it doesn't demean a single memory to say we should have something better.

And yet... many of the same mistakes are being made.

I don't think the Vietnam memorial worked. Too many people already forgot, and the ones who never served (Cheney et al) are calling the shots again. And doing it badly.

Noam Chomsky, as good a representative of the left as anyone IMO, argues that the US did NOT lose in Vietnam, but essentially succeeded in its goal of pushing Vietnam back in development, then quit.

So BrewFan turns out to be a leftist. Who knew?