Monuments and Memory-Making: The Debate over the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 1981-1982

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Introduction

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE GAME

On January 6, 2021, armed insurrectionists stormed the US Capitol. At the time of this writing, the history of the Capitol attack is still being written, but one thing that is clear is that those involved brandished the flag of the Confederacy. This act—this proclamation—was more than a mere nod to the past. In the halls of the Capitol, in congressional chambers, and through the streets of Washington, DC, those who participated in the attack invoked an interpretation of history that called back to the aftermath of the US Civil War, when former enslavers fought to memorialize the southern cause as noble and just, a heroic battle to preserve the ways of the South while minimizing the brutality of the system of slavery.

This fight over the narrative of the Civil War—so deep as to challenge the naming of the war itself—has pervaded American life for more than 150 years. In the wake of the conflict, southerners held dear to this noble lost cause narrative, as northerners sought to celebrate widespread triumph and the reclamation of a united nation. Today, as historians center the experience of enslaved people and the consequences of slavery in retelling the period, white supremacists like those who invaded the US Capitol on January 6 evoke the Confederacy to push back on the ideas of federal oversight and racial justice reform, lionizing those who fought as victims of an aggressive northern campaign to dismantle southern customs and traditions.

These debates over the past are not simply academic exercises; they matter because the way we understand and make sense of our collective past informs how we make sense of our contemporary reality. These efforts to commemorate a past as the past stem from our desire to craft a national collective memory of what has come before. In the Civil War, the tension between national unity and southern victimhood led to a narrative, largely accepted, that highlighted bravery and courage and focused on regional divides as an evolutionary process, rather than an end unto itself.

The National Mall, ca. 1980.

Source: Trust for the National Mall, www.nationalmall.org/national-mall/explore-mall/map [accessed March 8, 2018].

Debates over the memory of the Civil War, in some sense, set the stakes for remembrance going forward. Almost 110 years to the day after General Lee surrendered at Appomattox to end the Civil War, in April 1975 North Vietnamese soldiers took over the presidential palace in the southern city of Saigon, effectively ending a decades-long conflict in Vietnam. For more than twenty years, the United States had been embroiled in a regional fight in Southeast Asia, pitting the Ho Chi Minh’s communist government in North Vietnam against a shadow democracy in the south. As death tolls mounted in the country, back home Americans waged tense battles over the legitimacy of the war and the attendant upheaval of the 1960s. The Vietnam conflict was invoked in the struggle for racial justice; in debates about whose voices counted in voting and political office; in the fight for the very soul of the nation.

When the last US troops were evacuated from Saigon in May 1975, the country was already beginning the strained process of memorializing the conflict. In the years that followed, in the wake of devastating loss and in the midst of the continuing and ever-evolving Cold War, competing voices vied for control over how the United States should remember Vietnam. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, erected in 1982, was the culmination of this multidecade conflict in Southeast Asia, and of a five-year struggle in the United States over whose voices and experiences would be commemorated in stone.

Physical sites of memory like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial offer compelling ways of measuring collective memory. The way we interpret the past through these concrete structures provides insights into how the creators of those spaces constructed the past, how they intended for audiences to experience and make meaning of that past, and how those meanings can become contested.

Monuments and Memory-Making will bring students directly into that conflict. Students will take part in the conversations and controversies that emerged as the nation grappled with how best to memorialize what was at the time the longest conflict in US history. As they engage in the very process of memory-making, they will work to reconcile the varied and often clashing voices that rose up after the fall of Saigon.

How do we create a national memory of the past? How do we move on from a lost war? How do we remember the dead, while honoring the living? How do we reunite a fractured nation? Who speaks to that nation, and who speaks for it? How does public opinion and public consciousness shape our understanding of the past? Whose voices matter?

Over the next several weeks, students will learn that the past is neither fixed nor concrete, that empirical evidence is always viewed through the lens of the contemporary reality in which it is interpreted. The struggle for memorialization of the Vietnam conflict was rooted as much in the civic life and politics of the late 1970s and early 1980s as it was in the preceding decades of fighting. By entering into the debates over how to create a national monument to commemorate the Vietnam War, students will experience the construction of collective memory, understanding that our present impacts our past as much as our past impacts our present.

PROLOGUE: THE WASHINGTON MALL, MAY 1981

If you look out of the left side of the bus you will see the White House and, on the right, the Washington Monument. …

You listen to the announcement made by the tour guide as you sit on a city tour bus. This is what you have been wanting to see. Not the White House. The National Mall. Thank goodness this is one of those hop-on/hop-off tours. Time for you to hop off.

It is a warm day when you step off the bus in Washington, DC. Ever since you were a kid, you have wanted to visit the nation’s capital, and especially to visit the mall where all of the important national memorials are located. Here, visitors can walk the length of the 1.9-mile-long park, from the Capitol building to the Lincoln Memorial, the most visited national park in the country, where monuments and memorials have been constructed to celebrate important and remarkable people who have helped to shape the nation.

You learned in your social studies class at school that the purpose of the National Mall was to provide a central location to celebrate the nation’s ideals and values. As one member of Congress put it in 1972, Washington, D.C. is more than the seat of government. … It is a second home to every American, and the symbol of this nation to the world.¹ The National Park Service tells us that the mall embodies what we as Americans are meant to hold dear—democracy, freedom, justice, compassion, … service, healing, citizenship, civil rights, liberty, … dedication, courage, sacrifice.² Dedication, courage and sacrifice … those ideals and virtues are what draws you to the mall.

Last year, Congress authorized a new memorial on the mall to commemorate the men and women who had served in the Vietnam War. This is a personal mission for you, as your father is one of those that the memorial seeks to remember. As the child of a soldier who died in the war, you want to see a memorial that would honor him and all the other men and women who served their country. The question, of course, is how to move forward when the war in which they died is so fraught with controversy. The memory of the Vietnam War remains contentious, even five years after it ended; there are those who believe passionately that the conflict was immoral and others who preach the legitimacy and righteousness of the war.

As you walk toward the west end of the mall, you see tourists strolling past the Lincoln Memorial and then east toward the Washington Monument. It is here by the reflecting pool that the proposed Vietnam monument is supposed to be built—between two of the most important monuments in the park. Clearly, any memorial constructed for the Vietnam War will have pride of place on the mall and will be seen, if not visited, by millions of Americans.

You retrace your steps as you head toward the Capitol building at the east end of the mall. Your trip to Washington, DC, isn’t just about being a tourist. You are here to attend the public hearing about the memorial taking place on Capitol Hill. Unlike other memorials on the mall, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial has proven to be contentious, much like the war it seeks to commemorate.

The federal government appointed the land on the mall for the memorial, and the newly created Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF) focused on raising funds for the project, a long-established tradition in the United States dating back to the Washington Monument. You happily sent in your donation, as you wanted to help commemorate your father and his comrades in arms. Many others followed suit and soon the VVMF began moving forward with plans for a design of the memorial.

Rather than solicit designs from a small cohort of professionals, the VVMF opened the design competition up to the public; anyone over eighteen could participate.³ The parameters were quite broad, but the central idea of the design was to promote healing and reconciliation of the country after the divisions caused by the war.⁴ Over 1,400 designs were submitted to the panel. You can’t wait to find out which was selected.

You have come to Washington to attend the public announcement of the winning design, to offer your support or voice your critique. This memorial is simply too important, not only to you but to the country, to go without input from those most affected by the war.

You wonder which renowned architect, sculptor, or artist will be the winner.

As you wait in the foyer outside the hearing room, you begin to hear snippets of conversation from others here for the same reason as you.

I want to see something like the Marine Corps War Memorial, says one woman next to the water fountain, referencing the monument depicting the flag-raising at Iwo Jima, one of the most famous battles of World War II. That would be a good way to honor my husband and his sacrifice for his country.

But isn’t that too literal? asks her companion. What about an obelisk, like the Washington Monument? It’s beautiful, and it makes a statement.

What statement? What does it mean? I don’t know why they didn’t just make a nice statue of Washington on a horse, the woman harrumphs. If I’m contributing money toward honoring the memory of my husband, I want to know what exactly that memorial is representing. Plain, simple, and patriotic. With that emphatic defense of the traditional form of figurative commemoration, the woman put an end to the conversation.

As you lean against the wall, trying to rest from all of your wanderings around the mall, you overhear others who are also discussing the memorial.

I want a design that is more abstract and leaves the interpretation open to each visitor, says one person. That way people can take away their own meaning; it makes the experience more personal. Another nods his head in agreement: We don’t need another statue on the mall.

But these two are challenged by a third companion: How can we be memorializing an immoral war? Think of all the atrocities that were committed in Vietnam in the name of democracy!

You’ve heard the stories, the accusations leveled against veterans as baby killers. You take offense; you don’t want to think of your father in that light. You start to offer your thoughts, when one of the other men in the group beats you to it.

This memorial shouldn’t be about judging the war, he responds. Leave that judgment to the history books. This is about honoring the men and women who did their duty to their country.

Yeah, the war and those who fought it should not be judged side by side!

Your eavesdropping has given you much to think about, but your reverie is broken when the door to the hearing room swings open. While one young man props open the doors, another ushers the crowd into the room. You move toward the long line that has formed to enter. Finally, you reach the door.

What’s your opinion on this whole thing? asks the person waving you in.

Pardon me? You’re not even sure what you are being asked.

What do you think the perfect memorial for our war in Vietnam would be?

You pause, unsure of your response. How should the men such as your father, who sacrificed their lives in Vietnam, deserve to be honored, remembered, and mourned by the nation? Who decides what form that remembrance is going to take?

BASIC FEATURES OF REACTING TO THE PAST

This is a historical role-playing game. After a few preparatory lectures, the game begins and the students are in charge. Set in moments of heightened historical tension, it places you in the role of a person from the period. By reading the game book and your individual role sheet, you will find out more about your objectives, worldview, allies, and opponents. You must then attempt to achieve victory through formal speeches, informal debate, negotiations, and conspiracy. Outcomes sometimes differ from actual history; a debriefing session sets the record straight. What follows is an outline of what you will encounter in Reacting and what you will be expected to do.

Game Setup

Your instructor will spend some time before the beginning of the game helping you to understand the historical context for the game. During the setup period, you will use several different kinds of material:

• The game book (what you are reading now), which includes historical information, rules and elements of the game, and essential historical documents.

• A role sheet, which provides a short biography of the historical person you will model in the game as well as that person’s ideology, objectives, responsibilities, and resources. Some roles are based on historical figures. Others are composites, which draw elements from a number of individuals. You will receive your role sheet from your instructor.

Familiarize yourself with the documents before the game begins and return to them once you are in role. They contain information and arguments that will be useful as the game unfolds. A second reading while in role will deepen your understanding and alter your perspective. Once the game is in motion, your perspectives may change. Some ideas may begin to look quite different. Those who have carefully read the materials and who know the rules of the game will invariably do better than those who rely on general impressions and uncertain memories.

Game Play

Once the game begins, class sessions are presided over by students. In most cases, a single student serves as some sort of presiding officer. The instructor then becomes the GM (the game master or game manager) and takes a seat in the back of the room. Though they do not lead the class sessions, GMs may do any of the following:

• Pass notes

• Announce important events

• Redirect proceedings that have gone off track

Instructors are, of course, available for consultations before and after game sessions. Although they will not let you in on any of the secrets of the game, they can be invaluable in terms of sharpening your arguments or finding key historical resources.

The presiding officer is expected to observe basic standards of fairness, but as a fail-safe device, most games employ the podium rule, which allows a student who has not been recognized to approach the podium and wait for a chance to speak. Once at the podium, the student has the floor and must be heard.

Role sheets contain private, secret information that you must guard. Exercise caution when discussing your role with others. Your role sheet probably identifies likely allies, but even they may not always be trustworthy. However, keeping your own counsel and saying nothing to anyone is not an option. In order to achieve your objectives, you must speak with others. You will never muster the voting strength to prevail without allies. Collaboration and coalition building are at the heart of every game.

Some games feature strong alliances called factions. As a counterbalance, these games include roles called indeterminates. They operate outside of the established factions, and while some are entirely neutral, most possess their own idiosyncratic objectives. If you are in a faction, cultivating indeterminates is in your interest, since they can be persuaded to support your position. If you are lucky enough to have drawn the role of an indeterminate, you should be pleased; you will likely play a pivotal role in the outcome of the game.

Game Requirements

Students playing Reacting games practice persuasive writing, public speaking, critical thinking, teamwork, negotiation, problem solving, collaboration, adapting to changing circumstances, and working under pressure to meet deadlines. Your instructor will explain the specific requirements for your class. In general, though, a Reacting game asks you to perform three distinct activities:

Reading and writing. What you read can often be put to immediate use, and what you write is meant to persuade others to act the way you want them to. The reading load may have slight variations from role to role; the writing requirement depends on your particular course. Papers are often policy statements, but they can also be autobiographies, battle plans, newspaper articles, poems, or after-game reflections. Papers often provide the foundation for the speeches delivered in class. They also help to familiarize you with the issues, which should allow you to ask good questions.

Public speaking and debate. In the course of a game, almost everyone is expected to deliver at least one formal speech from the podium (the length of the game and the size of the class will determine the number of speeches). Debate follows. It can be impromptu, raucous, and fast paced. At some