Vietnam Veterans Memorial

This simple memorial is the most powerful in the city, if not the nation. A black granite ‘V’ cuts into the Mall, just as the war it memorializes cut into the national psyche. The memorial eschews mixing conflict with glory. Instead, it quietly records the names of service personnel KIA and MIA (killed in action and missing in action) in Vietnam, honoring those who gave their lives and explaining, in stark architectural language, the true price paid in war.

Originally planned to reconcile a divided nation, the memorial was conceived by Maya Lin, a 21-year-old Yale architecture student, following a nationwide call for proposed designs in 1982. The two walls of Indian granite meet in a 10ft apex; their polished, mirror surface invites visitors into the roll call of the dead. There are over 58,200 soldiers named on the wall (the number sporadically increases as names are added due to clerical errors in record keeping). Rank is not provided on the wall, and privates share space with majors. Unlike the soaring white Washington Monument and similar structures, the Vietnam Memorial is black, and burrows into the ground.

Paper indices at both ends help you locate individual names. Left mementos such as photos of babies and hand-scrawled notes bring tears to the most hardened hearts; these are collected by rangers and brought to the National Museum of American History.

In 1984 opponents of Maya Lin’s design insisted that a more traditional sculpture of soldiers be added to the monument. The Three Soldiers depicts a white, African American and Latino soldier who seem to be gazing upon the nearby sea of names. Also nearby is the tree-ringed Women in Vietnam Memorial depicting female soldiers aiding a fallen combatant.