Commemorating the 35th anniversary of Vietnam Memorial Wall

It has been 35 years since the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall was dedicated in Washington, D.C.

Opened to the public on Nov. 13, 1982, the black V-shaped wall is only part of the tribute on the National Mall to the men and women who fought in the war, but it is the most popular element. The wall attracted over 5.5 million visitors in 2015.

A portion of the wall was recently on display in the Valley.

Here are five facts about the wall:

The designer was a college kid

Maya Ying Lin, designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. met with Mayor Ed Koch of New York and Richard Kuo, chairman of the Chinatown planning council. Miss Lin, in New York,  Feb. 18, 1983, was voted by the New York City Council as the Women of the Year for 1983. Miss Lin is from Athens, Ohio. (AP Photo/Corky Lee)

Ohio native Maya Lin won a national competition that drew over 1,400 entries. The 21-year-old architecture student was in her dorm room at Yale in May 1981 when she was told she’d won. The idea for the memorial started out as a class assignment.

Art pros liked the design, vets did not

(Library of Congress)

The design of the wall became a source of contention. Art professionals among the memorial organizers saw Lin’s plan and loved it. Veterans and many others did not. Double Purple Heart awardee Tom Carhart objected so strongly, he wrote a New York Times op-ed piece in 1981 that called the design “pointedly insulting” and “a black gash of shame.”

The memorial was fully funded through donations

Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund founder Jan Scruggs visits the wall. (Screenshot)

Vietnam war vet Jan C. Scruggs believed soldiers could only heal from their war experiences if they had a memorial to honor their sacrifices. He established the nonprofit Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund in 1979. The group raised almost $9 million for the project, not penny of which came from the government.

58,000 plus names arranged by date of casualty

The National Parks Service, which oversees the site, answered on a frequently asked questions page:

“The names are arranged chronologically by date of casualty. The first names appear at the center of the wall at the top of panel 1E. The panels are filled like pages of a journal listing the men and women’s names as they fell. Upon reaching the farthest east end of the memorial at panel 70E, the pattern continues from the far west end of the memorial at panel 70W, continuing back to the center at panel 1W. In this manner, the memorial evokes a theme of closure or completion; the first are with the last.”

Every few years, volunteers read aloud the names on the wall. This year’s Reading of the Names took four days this year.

The memorial is open 24/7

Rangers are on site from 9:30 a.m. until 11 p.m. every day.

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