{"id":12473,"date":"2023-05-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-24T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=12473"},"modified":"2023-05-26T06:49:42","modified_gmt":"2023-05-26T06:49:42","slug":"vietnam-vets-honored-during-50th-anniversary-celebration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=12473","title":{"rendered":"Vietnam vets honored during 50th anniversary celebration"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Visitors to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. walk the length of the wall March 11 and observe the more than 58,000 names engraved on the wall. The memorial is the most visited memorial on the Washington, D.C. Mall with more than 5 million visitors every year.
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\n Members of the Vietnam War Commemoration, Welcome Home celebration host the opening ceremony May 11 in Washington, D.C. The event was three days, and featured several static displays as well as several informational booths and panels.
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\n A visitor to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. makes a graphite rubbing of one of the names on the wall March 11. The wall is inscribed with more than 58,000 names of those who were killed in action or are still missing in action.
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WASHINGTON \u2014 The Vietnam War Commemoration hosted Welcome Home, a three-day event in Washington, D.C. on May 11-13 to celebrate 50 years since the last Soldier, Master Sgt. Max Beilke, left Vietnam, and to honor Vietnam veterans who died and are still missing in action.<\/p>\n

More than 58,300 service members paid the ultimate sacrifice and gave their lives during the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n

One key word is echoed by many when speaking about past U.S. conflicts: sacrifice. When a service member is called to action, the force answers, regardless of the nature of the call. And in conflict, some service members pay the ultimate sacrifice.<\/p>\n

One of the main monuments built to honor those who gave their lives during Vietnam is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which chronologically lists the names of the 58,318 Americans who died or are MIA.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know the names of all 17 guys who lost their lives making the ultimate sacrifice and \u2026 the issue for me is when I go to the wall, I have a struggle \u2026 all of those guys come back rushing into my conscious,\u201d said retired Col George Forrest, a Vietnam veteran who fought in the Battle of Ia Drang, which was popularized in the movie \u201cWe Were Soldiers.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the Welcome Home event, a panel was hosted by members who were responsible for the conception and completion of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Sitting on the panel was Jan Scruggs, who, in 1979, dedicated his efforts to create the memorial; Terrence O\u2019Donnell, who served as an Air Force counterintelligence officer in Vietnam and as outside counsel for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund; and Paul Spreiregen, a Washington, D.C.-based architect, planner and author.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne definition of a great memorial is that it conveys a forceful message about the events or the individuals that it commemorates,\u201d O\u2019Donnell said. \u201cAnd that’s why [the Vietnam Veterans Memorial] is so compelling to visitors, veterans, families, those who serve and those who didn’t serve. They want to see this, and they’re moved by it. It is a religious experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

The memorial is the most visited memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., attracting more than 5 million people each year.<\/p>\n

Getting the monument built was not an easy process, but several veterans were determined to make it happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started the effort, not knowing what I was doing; ultimately, I got a good team behind me,\u201d Scruggs said. \u201cThe thing that makes [the memorial] different than all other memorials is that people can interact with it. They touch it, participate with it, cry with it. There\u2019s kind of a communion between the living and the dead, and it has done so much for military veterans and for the people who come to see it.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the monument was being conceptualized, there were several ideas that needed to be incorporated into the design, including the names of those who died and the MIA, and it needed to be in a place of honor, which is why it is located between the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial.<\/p>\n

The last thing they needed was a design.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe decision to have a design competition was made by the sponsor group for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, design competitions, for architectural projects, planning and landscape,\u201d Scruggs said. \u201cThe reason for holding [a design competition] for this memorial is quite simple, and that is that it was for Americans to answer \u2014 to find \u2014 to search for a way to honor the memory of those whose lives were lost.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the winning design came from Maya Lin, artist and architect who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe had a very striking design [that uses] the black granite, in which you can see your own reflection,\u201d Scruggs said. \u201cThe arrangement of the names, they\u2019re actually alphabetized by day \u2026 fantastic work of art.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though the war is often a point of controversy in U.S. history, many veterans still stand for honoring those who paid the ultimate sacrifice.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever I\u2019m asked, \u2018What do you say to the skeptic about the war,\u2019 I say honor the warrior, not the war,\u201d Forrest said.<\/p>\n

For many people, visiting the memorial can be emotional and impactful. For many veterans, the monument stands as a testament to the sacrifice made by the service members with whom they served.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most compelling feature of the memorial: you cannot walk down that path and see the gradual increase in the number of names and not think about the nature of war and the investment of life and treasure,\u201d O\u2019Donnell said. \u201cPeople take away their own views, their own perspective on what they just saw, and what they take away is a memory that’s going to stick with them for life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Army News Service<\/a><\/p>\n

ARNEWS Archive<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1 \/ 3 Show Caption + Hide Caption \u2013 Visitors to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. walk the length of the wall March 11 and observe the more than 58,000 names engraved on the wall. The memorial is the most visited memorial on the Washington, D.C. Mall with more than 5 million visitors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12475,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12473"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12479,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12473\/revisions\/12479"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}