Where Memory Endures

摘要

The vietnam veterans memorial is so iconic, you tend to forget the political tempest that surrounded it more than 25 years ago. After the design—by a then-unknown Yale undergrad named Maya Lin—beat out 1,420 contenders in a blind competition, big shots such as Ross Perot, as well as 27 Republican congressmen, tried to block the starkly elegant plan. Critics claimed the gentle V where its two long walls met was a coded peace sign; what Lin called "a rift in the earth" one brigadier general termed "a scar of shame." Some vets hated it, too, so a conventional bronze statue of three soldiers and an American flag were installed nearby. But even from the start, the public seemed to embrace the memorial. Today it's the most-visited monument in Washington.