“We
haven’t been able to participate in this annual tradition for the past
two years because of the pandemic,” said President Roberts. “The
majority of us who participate in this special event each year are all
veterans. I know I speak for each and every one of us when I say this is
one of the most honorable things we can do as veterans. For those of us
who actually got to come home from Vietnam, it is a very somber
experience to see the names of one of our fellow servicemen etched on
the granite of the memorial wall.
“This year makes it a little more special because we haven’t been
able to be here for the last few years,” Roberts said. “When we come
here, I think we all say a little prayer for the men and women’s names
who are on The Wall, and we all thank God that we were afforded the
opportunity to return home to our families. Coming here is just a small
token of our way of paying our respects to all those who lost their
lives and never returned home.”
The Vietnam Memorial Wall includes the names of over 58,000
servicemen and women who gave their lives in service in the Vietnam
conflict. The memorial includes the Vietnam Veterans Wall, the Three
Servicemen statue, and the Vietnam Women’s Memorial. It is the most
visited memorial on the National Mall, attracting more than five million
people each year.
The inscription on the wall reads, “In memory of the men and women
who served in the Vietnam War and later died as a result of their
service. We honor and remember their sacrifice.”
On January 21, 1970, Jan Scruggs was having his morning cup of
coffee, but he was anywhere but in his kitchen at home. He was in
Vietnam serving in the 199th light infantry brigade. In the nine months
since he had been there, he had seen a lot of action. He had been
wounded during battle, spent three months recovering in a hospital, and
was sent back to fight with rocket-propelled grenade fragments
permanently embedded in his body.
On that January day, there was a big explosion and Scruggs ran over
to see a truck on fire and a dozen of his friends dying. They had been
unloading an ammunition truck when the explosion occurred. Scruggs never
forgot that horrific scene and never forgot his friends.
In 1979, Scruggs conceived the idea to build the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial as a tribute to all those who served during one of the longest
wars in American history. He felt the memorial would serve as a healing
device for those who visited the memorial. Scruggs launched his vision
with $2,800 of his own money and gradually gained support from other
Vietnam veterans in persuading Congress to provide a prominent location
on federal government property in Washington, D.C.
Congress eventually responded, and the site was chosen on the
National Mall near the Lincoln Memorial. Scruggs is the president of the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Inc., and was able to raise $8.4
million. The memorial was completed in just two years.
It was dedicated on November 13, 1982, during a weeklong national
salute to Vietnam veterans in the nation’s capital. The Vietnam Veterans
War Memorial Fund works with the National Park Service to preserve and
maintain The Wall.
March 2022, marked the 40th anniversary of the groundbreaking
ceremony of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Since The Wall was dedicated
back in 1982, more than 400,000 items have been left by visitors as
remembrances and tributes. The National Park Service collects, catalogs,
and preserves these items as part of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
collections with curatorial support over the years from the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial Fund.
In
a public statement about the anniversary, he said that he thought the
memorial helped bring the nation together and helped people recover from
the war, adding that The Wall became a platform for exchanging views
without the vitriol that the controversial conflict had stoked.
As part of the 40th-anniversary commemoration, an in-person Reading
of the Names ceremony will take place at the memorial site beginning on
November 7, 2022.
For 65 hours over a four-day period, each of the 58,281 names on The
Wall will be read aloud by thousands of volunteers. The names will be
read in the same order they are inscribed on The Wall—by date of
casualty.
