The Vietnam War was truly an epochal event. One of the
aspects of Vietnam which made it different to anything before was the
relationship between the war and the media. Vietnam war media provided fundamentally
different coverage than any war that had come before, the proximity to the
conflict which correspondents and writers achieved allowed for a raw,
unfiltered vision of what war actually meant. Michael Herr’s book Dispatches (1977), for example, was widely read
after the War and into the 80s and, like much of Vietnam media, called into
question the American quest for liberal hegemony and highlighted American
intervention as a negative for a public whom had, up to Vietnam, been given
little reason to suspect foreign policy as directly destructive or ‘wrong’.
With such a real sense of what Vietnam was, it was always going
to be hard for the public – whether that be families of dead or wounded
soldiers or veterans – to come to terms with Vietnam. The 1980’s was riddled
with much of this turbulence and the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, DC,
became a focal point of the discussion over remembrance.
Firstly, the memorial (finished in 1982) was designed by
Maya Lin, an Asian American student aged 21. Of course, this immediately problematises
the idea for some whom may have carried racial biases over from time served in
Vietnam or just as spectators of the war. Lin has said that she doubts she
ever would have been chosen if anyone had known that she was a student, not to
mention a woman and an Asian (Vanity Fair, 2012).
There have been various reactions to ‘The Wall’ as it became
known. A Vietnam Vet John Devitt had a fluctuating opinion: “It's a gravestone. It was black, it was
in the ground, it wasn't designed by a Vietnam vet.” (NYT, 1989). I think many
people will have held the same view as Devitt, for many Vietnam veterans felt
abandoned, disregarded and the memorial in DC just exacerbated that for them.
Rather than having a positive effect it reminded them of death and regrets. “a
gravestone” in Devitt’s words. However, “when I walked up to it” He remembered, “all that disappeared; it
seemed irrelevant. The impact was incredible…58,000 names…I was shocked.” (NYT,
1989).
Another couple
interviewed upon viewing ‘The Wall’ said “Don't know anybody on it…Don't know
anybody that knows anybody on it…Seen it so much on TV, we had to come.” (NYT,
1990). A much more detached, seemingly less well intentioned perspective. This
speaks to the very nature of physical memorial sites. I think the debate
surrounding the remembrance and reaction to Vietnam in the 80s is unique
because of the very nature of that particular War and the hangover from it.
There is of course ongoing debate regarding MIA soldiers and POW’s (for whom an
independent memorial was constructed in Venice, CA). Also, a statue, secondary
to Lin’s wall, was campaigned for and erected in DC to represent a more traditional
site of memorial. Again, contentious is the fact that the statue was paid for
by private contributions (NYT, 1984) and then signed into the possession of the
Government. Surely the Government should pay for and erect a statue on behalf
of the people?
By their very
nature, memorial sites are always going to be contentious, unable to
garner support from every invested party and open to less well natured
opinions. Remembrance on a mass scale is a problematic idea, Vietnam is no
different in that sense. It is the particularly disastrous nature of Vietnam,
during and after the conflict, which makes remembering it, especially in the
80s so soon after its capitulation, very difficult.
