WP, pg1: Vietnam Wall Visitor Center Approved

[DeepModem Mom]

Vietnam Wall Visitor Center Approved
Underground Facility Will Be Located Near Existing Memorial
By Petula Dvorak
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 4, 2006; Page A01

The federal commission with final say over monuments and memorials in the nation's capital gave the green light yesterday for the newest addition to America's front yard: a sprawling underground Vietnam Veterans Memorial visitor center that will be constructed between the Lincoln Memorial and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall.

The center will be the first new memorial project on the coveted Mall since the National World War II Memorial was built. Preservationists, who have wanted to conserve the Lincoln Memorial's grounds, fought the center. But the project was championed by some veterans groups that have long been troubled by the understated nature of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall and want to provide more history and context for its list of more than 58,000 Americans killed or missing in the war.

With memorial space at a premium in Washington -- where some groups have quietly fought for years to get patches of land inside traffic circles for memorial statues or slivers of pocket parks for monuments -- the Vietnam veterans won one of the biggest prizes of all yesterday.

"It's a good day. This was a long time in coming," Jan C. Scruggs, president and founder of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, said after the National Capital Planning Commission approved the project yesterday.

The project has drawn criticism because of its potential to convey conclusions about a conflict that tore the country apart. But Scruggs said the 25,000-square-foot center will be a neutral, fact-based presentation that will pay tribute to U.S. soldiers. It may include a movie theater, a three-dimensional battle scene, mementos left at the memorial, and a wall where pictures of slain soldiers will be projected on their birthdays, creating a dynamic tribute that changes daily....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/03/AR2006080301758.html

[Monkeyman]

1. To my brothers on the wall we shall never forget you

[TomInTib]

2. I have many brothers' names that are carved in that cold, cold stone..

62 of them, as a matter of fact.

[Skittles]

9. *sniff*

so sorry, Tom

[uppityperson]

3. k&r for The Wall, for reminders of war, "never again ha"

no brothers or sisters on the wall, relatives of friends though.

[Historic NY]

4. I see some have negative comments about.....

the underground design...I seem to remember the same comments made about "The Wall", that it was nothing more than a hole in the ground. I don't know but it grabs me everytime I visit it. It also is the number one visited memorial in all of DC. The National Law Enforcement Memorial on e-street is built in the middle of a tube stop. They expect to open their underground museum in the next couple of years.

Its not the size of the style of the monument that counts, what counts is that a monument or memorial was made. People remembered and cared to see it come about.


“The Wall” by Tim Murphy

On a drizzly D.C. morning, in the middle of July,
My brother brought me downtown to the Mall;
Past the watchful eyes of Lincoln, ‘neath a weeping summer sky,
We crossed the street to the little green and visited The Wall.

I remember I was nervous then, I guess a little scared,
‘Cause I wasn’t sure how I’d react at all.
To see the names of the servicemen who’d been recorded there:
Who’d heard the final roll call and assembled at The Wall.

The Wall is many granite sections, solid, cool and black,
A visitor may pause to touch a name.
It just seems that in the dark reflections hands are reachin' back,
As if to greet and touch and hold the hands of those who came.

Someone might stoop to leave a rose, a letter, or a poem;
A message to a young man loved and lost,
To show they still remember those who never made it home:
Who built The Wall so long and tall, and paid the bitter cost.

And every name’s a father or a husband or a son,
Or a daughter or a brother or a cousin to someone;
Or a name might be a classmate or a friend you may recall:
There’s nearly sixty thousand fallen names still waiting at The Wall.

As I watched the lines of people that walked by in slow parade,
I read a different story in each face;
And I couldn’t help but wonder at this pilgrimage we’d made,
And what common bond, if any, might have brought us to this place.

There were tourists, and the curious, and some veterans who came,
Still others who sought an answer to it all;
But the only thing I’m sure of is: we left not quite the same,
With our memories alive and well, and waiting at The Wall.

There's Nearly 60,00 fallen name still waiting at The Wall.....

[saigon68]

5. The Wall by Alfred A. Hambidge, Jr.

"They never saw what napalm does do a little girl's skin. They never saw a 19-year-old from Iowa screaming and writhing on the ground because a mine blew his legs off. They never saw a man take a bullet through the brain, then watch his body flop around on the ground for a minute or so because it doesn't realize he's dead. They never put pieces of someone into a bag, not knowing who it was until you read the tags, because there wasn't any face left to go along with the other parts. They haven't seen the shit I've seen, and they want to do it all over again. Those bastards!

http://www.hackworth.com/article03112003z.html

[DemoTex]

6. Sprawling underground Vietnam Veterans Memorial visitor center ..

I think that the article alludes to the tunnels of Chu Chi, usually described as the VC's sprawling underground tunnel complex 35 miles northwest of Saigon. While evocative of that place and time, I certainly do not find it inappropriate.

[HereSince1628]

7. Personally, the notion of it leaves me just as empty as ever

I doubt those of us who mostly successfully ignore the awful yawning emptiness that war left in our psyches will find treasures in the visitors' center to fill that void, no balm to patch it over. But, I won't disparage their attempt if those who want it won't claim it will make things right.

The living wounds and scars of more than a decade of killing in that war are racing toward oblivion. In 25 years the living pain of that war will be nearing extinction. "Visitors" to the memorial who know the doubt, guilt and loneliness of being survivors who need to touch the wall to enact ritual good-byes that had no chance to happen will become fewer and fewer, until they simply come no more.

I can imagine a visitors' center, lined with brigade and divisional emblems and plaques to the conflict's winners of the medal of honor, perhaps an interactive map where a person can view an authorized version of what passes as the most significant combat, perhaps, notwithstanding privacy laws, an interactive database of service records that will yield up an unpronouncable name of the location of a relative's service and perhaps a death. I foresee a theater with a video loop that tries to give meaning to why it was so horrible and needed the memorial but, of course, with critical omissions of the reality so that nine year olds who visit will still be able to sleep without having nightmares.

The experience of Vietnam is faded. Already the nation's resolve to "never doing that again" has completely lost it's power. To our great dismay we are once again "doing that again." Despite all efforts, the active role of the wall is sure to become dormant, it will remain of course, impressive, but just as enigmatic as statues with rosters of Spanish American War soldiers that dot courthouse lawns around the country.

A generation from now, the importance of that visitors' center will be that it is a cool place on a stiflingly hot and humid summer day in DC. Believe me, it will be _that_ coolness borne of the earth and shared by the graves of veterans and families of those afflicted by the war that will actually relieve the torment through final sleep.

[Turbineguy]

8. I recall during GW One

Poppy Bush shouted with glee "The Vietnam Syndrome is over!"

It's still one of the most offensive statements I have ever heard even considering what has happened and been said since then.