Maya Lin: Separating Grief from Glory

Maya Lin's Design Sketch for
Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 1981.
 (More images here.)

The post I intended to write was a riff on something I read in The Concise Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick: "The Vietnam Veteran's Memorial, dedicated in November 1982, contains the names of 58,280 dead or missing Americans. The message is clear -- the tragedy is the death of those Americans. But imagine if the names of 3.8million Vietnamese, and millions of Cambodians and Laotians, were also included. The wall, whos length is 493 feet, would be over eight miles long."

"Eight miles long." That's something to think about.

Before I sat down to write, however, I watched a film about Maya Lin and the creation of the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial: Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision. It stopped me in my tracks.

Before I talk about where we ultimately need to get to, I need to talk about something remarkable that has already been done.

The memorial designed by Maya Lin did something that hadn't occurred to anyone before: separate the grief for dead soldiers from the valorizing of war.
How could I have failed to remember the magnitude of what she accomplished? The controversy over the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial happened in the period right after I graduated from college. Some people opposed the memorial because it looked like a "black scar in the ground." The film helps make very clear the need they felt to make the memorial about glory.

Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall
(Source: Wikipedia)

But the film's footage of veterans and families also makes it clear what the vast majority of people wanted and needed: help in dealing with grief.

Maya Lin

Maya Lin was 21 when she provided the design for the memorial. Throughout a controversy that became very acrimonious -- including racist slurs against her personally -- she hung in there and reminded people of the artistic intent behind the design. She is a model of courage and poise.

We antiwar activists should watch and learn.


(PS - Happy International Women's Day.)


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