There’s been some noise lately about Civil War monuments. It’s reminded me of the Vietnam War Memorial Wall in Washington. I suppose I’ve visited it or walked past it 50 times in the last 25 years. Sometimes I’d walk down to the reflecting pool in the evening, then go visit Mr. Lincoln. After a howdy to the President I’d slip down to the Wall and bum a Camel from an old vet who was always there, maybe lived there. We’d smoke and joke for a minute, five minutes, and then I’d go back to my hotel.
There are 58,318 names inscribed on the Wall. Eight of the names belong to women, 1,200 are for guys MIA, or POWs who died in prison. There’s a bronze statue of three guys just across from the Wall. One guy is white; one guy is black; the third guy is Mexican. They’re American soldiers looking at the Wall, remembering.
Why did these men and women die? There was a theory called the Domino Theory that argued if the U.S. didn’t stop the spread of Communism in Vietnam, Communism would spread to all other countries in the region “like falling dominos.” No one knew then – except economists – that Communism was a dumb-assed, unsustainable system that would collapse under its own weight. Which it did within a decade following the war.
So: they died in defense of a theory that proved to be a wrong theory.
There were other reasons. They were unlucky, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some guys were trying to save a friend’s life. One guy was killed while helping a little boy up and out of a rice paddy. And a lot of guys didn’t know about the theory; they thought they were patriots, saving democracy. There were a lot of reasons.
It’s possible that people will want to tear the Vietnam Memorial Wall down sometime in the next 100 years. They might be mad that so many people were killed – and got killed – because of our government’s paranoia, hubris, and self-delusion.
But maybe they’ll think about the other reasons too, and leave it alone.
This sounds like a slide in the Trump Slippery Slope Competition. Confederate flags and monuments stand alone in representing a major rebellion against the United States. It was not just a dumb idea BY and FOR our country; it was a dumb idea AGAINST our country. From this Northern girl’s perspective, it’s not unlike putting up a statue of Benedict Arnold in the town square as representing the ideals to which our community should aspire.
That said, I do believe that it’s a local community decision as to which ideals they which to glorify and put on a pedestal: unity or division; equality or inequality.
What I dislike about that wall My children’s father’s name is on it. What I respect are all those who served and the fact that all the viewer’s reflections become part of the wall.