On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month

In her Veterans Day essay, Raye remarks that

Visiting the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, DC is the closest I’ve come to feeling the collective anguish of an entire generation. I left the Memorial walk heaving great sobs of agony. I can’t explain it. It swept over me so suddenly, without warning, that I was as shocked by the reaction as I was by the immense anguish that flowed out of that place.

Though she and I have never discussed the subject, and we have never visited DC together, I must note that the Vietnam Veterans Memorial—by which I mean only Maya Lin’s “Wall”—draws a remarkably similar, astonishingly deep, reaction from me. 

I come from a background decidedly less directly military than Raye’s.  My student deferment and lottery number (it was 149) kept me out of the Vietnam-era draft; even if I’d somehow been drafted, my parents made it clear that they would have supported and encouraged my emigration (O Canada!) ... in fact, they would have driven me across the border.  My brother didn’t face the problem because he’s three years younger and the draft had ended by the time he might have been susceptible to it.  Looking back through my family, I note that my father (age 22 when Pearl Harbor was bombed) got a 4-F because he was deaf in one ear due to a mastoid infection in his youth.  My maternal grandfather (age 21 when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated) served as a temporary New York City police officer during WWI, replacing NYPD cops drafted to go “over there”.  Though my paternal grandfather (around 25 in 1914) served in the Czar’s army at some point, it was as a French horn player.  The closest thing to “military” in my family is the WWII service by cousins of my parents (cousin Herbert flew in a B-24 over Ploesti, cousin Boris was on a DDE somewhere) and by my mother’s sister’s husband (Leonard was a translator in Europe).  None of them were remotely interested in telling war stories unless strongly urged, and it was exceedingly rare that someone would do that urging.

As a persistent protester of the Vietnam war, I was reviled by what my country did there.  As such, I experienced many of the “homeland” effects of Vietnam.  But no matter how deeply I thought I had been affected by the scar upon our nation’s psyche that was Vietnam, I was completely unprepared for the emotional torrents that rained down upon me when I visited Maya Lin’s creation.  It drew out an extraordinary range of feelings and thoughts, building its layers of meaning with an intensity that I didn’t know I was capable of perceiving.

Ms. Lin has written and spoken eloquently about the symbolism she designed into the structure.  Well, many others have written such things about their artistic or architectural creations, but the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is that rare work of art where the symbolism, both intended and (perhaps) unintended, really connects for me. 

For example, as you approach the Wall from the nearest street (Constitution Ave NW), you can’t really see it until you’re almost upon it, reminding us how the war snuck into our consciousness bit by bit.  Rounding the corner of the Wall (shaped in a vee-as-in-Vietnam, of course), we have to lean over to search out the first few panels for the first few names of the first few Americans to die in the war ... again, a reminder of how insidiously the war began.  Then as we step down, down, down into the ever-deepening war, the ever-increasing litany of names on the stark black panels overwhelms us with its volume.  That there is no hint of idolatry, no attempt to memorialize anyone’s “achievements” with a statue or battle flag, powerfully demonstrates how wrenchingly horrible and unheroic and just plain wasteful of human beings the war really was (I think the statues forced into the VVM by politicians do nothing but detract from the power of Lin’s masterwork).  All of the war deaths were equally painful to the country, so there’s no indication of rank or service branch on the Wall ... infantryman or pilot, Marine or Navy, buck private or bird colonel, Special Forces or nurse—all ended up just as dead for just as little reason.

If the phenomenon of transference exists, there is no better example of it than the Wall.  Day or night, rain or shine, the grief and sorrow of loved ones, survivors, and buddies of the memorialized dead washes over and engulfs anyone and everyone.  No one close to me died in Vietnam; in fact, except for my ex’s uncles I don’t think I know or knew anyone who was in the service, much less anyone who was in-country.  Yet I am overwhelmed by sorrow and palpable, heartfelt grief whenever I visit the VVM (which I do every time I go to DC).  I’m not one ordinarily subject to feelings of deep emotion, yet being at the Wall is invariably an emotionally-wrenching experience for me.  I’ve stood at the Western Wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and I know that others around me were experiencing shatteringly deep emotions about a millenia-old heritage I share, yet I remained a tourist.  That’s not the case at Maya Lin’s Wall.

So, on this day of remembrance for all of America’s veterans, I stand in awe that so many of my countrymen and countrywomen put their lives on the line for the rest of us.  I’m saddened that so many of them made the ultimate sacrifice, to be forever memorialized on the Wall, on countless other war memorials, and in our hearts.  And I’m even more deeply saddened that several hundred of our young men and women have joined those ranks recently, in a conflict perhaps even more illusory and even more unconscionable than the one so powerfully captured by Maya Lin.

Who will create the object that so fully evokes the underlying character of Bush’s folly?  And how long will it take before that can be done?

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