By JEREMY EGNER
Observer Staff
Nov. 10, 2007

Jan Bean remembers the first time he saw his own reflection in the black granite of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial’s iconic wall.

It was sometime in the mid-1990s, more than 10 years after the wall’s construction — and nearly 30 years after the former marine’s tours in Vietnam — that he was finally able to face the more than 58,000 names and flood of memories that waited for him in the wall’s polished granite. More than a decade later, he still has a hard time describing his first visit.“I was overwhelmed,” he said quietly, standing before the wall on Saturday. “Just seeing the names, whether I knew them or not … It’s beyond words, really. There’s still a lot of vets who won’t come here because they don’t feel that they can stand it.”

Bean was among thousands who did make the trip on Veterans Day weekend. Veterans from all branches of the military and all 50 states visited Washington in order to reflect upon and honor the 25th anniversary of perhaps the National Mall’s most solemn monument. Many of the visitors opted to join in a festive march down Constitution Avenue to commemorate the anniversary of the wall. Many made the trip exclusively to honor fallen kin or comrades; others simply reflected upon the tragic stakes of war at a time when the United States finds itself mired in another increasingly unpopular conflict abroad.

“We took a vow that never again would this nation send our young men and women into war without the committing of the nation first, without a commitment for the nation to bear the costs of caring for the warriors when they came home,” Paul Buka, who won the Congressional Medal of Honor for his service in Vietnam, told the thousands assembled on the mall before the parade.“That was our vow,” he said, “but unfortunately we have not lived up to it.”

From controversial to cherished

Dedicated on Nov. 13, 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial sprang from a national design competition open to any U.S citizen 18 or older. A panel of artists and designers unanimously chose the stark design put forth by Maya Ying Lin, then a 21-year-old senior at Yale University.

The two walls are each 246-feet, 8-inches long and point to the northeast corners of the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial. The wall is only 8 inches high at each end, but stands more than 10-feet tall at its apex.

From a distance, the memorial appears as a dark scar within the national landscape. It lacks the grand columns and bombast of more conventional tributes, such as the nearby National World War II Memorial, which opened in 2004. Lin sought to create a “rift in the earth” that invited reflection upon the vast human toll of Vietnam, she told the selection committee more than 25 years ago.

“These names, seemingly infinite in number, convey the sense of overwhelming numbers, while unifying these individuals into a whole,” she wrote in a statement included in her proposal.

Though the Wall’s somber aesthetics ruffled some feathers when it was conceived, time and a steady stream of visitors have validated the approach, said veterans in attendance Saturday.

“Look at it now,” said Bob Moore, part of the 25-man Alaska Vietnam vet contingent. “It’s the most visited memorial here.” (According to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, more than 4 million people visit the memorial each year.)

“It’s beautiful work art,” said Steve Schroeder, of Bedford County, Pa. “It’s a great tribute to all us guys.”

The veterans came in droves because they “owed it to those guys,” Schroeder said of the names in the wall. But in the speeches and ceremony preceding the parade, there was also plenty of talk about what Vietnam veterans owe the next generation of war veterans, such as those currently in or returning from Iraq, as well.

“No matter how we feel about this war, its important to the Vietnam vets that we never treat the veterans the way we were treated,” said Frederick Becker IV, another Alaskan vet. Becker’s veterans group in Alaska shows up at airports to wish current soldiers well on their way overseas and returns to welcome them home, he said.

But the main objective of Saturday’s festivities was to commemorate those who didn’t return from what remains, for now, at least, America’s longest and most controversial international conflict.

A steady stream of volunteers read the more than 58,000 names aloud, adding another dimension to the tribute to the fallen. Saturday afternoon, the crowds and quiet activity around the Wall came to a halt as a Marine bugler stood atop the vertex of the two walls and played “Taps.”

“It’s a dark, stark monument for a dark, stark war,” Moore said. “You’re on your own hallowed ground when you visit.”