A RIFT IN THE EARTH

Nonfiction

Solace in stone

A RIFT IN THE EARTH:
Art, Memory, and the Fight for a Vietnam War Memorial

By James Reston, Jr.

284 pp. Arcade Publishing

Reviewed by Diane Diekman

This book could be considered a biography of this national memorial. Having many times visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., and having followed the controversy as it was built, I looked forward to reading this story. I especially wanted to learn if those who opposed it so violently have come to realize The Wall’s importance in healing rifts from the Vietnam War.

Author James Reston, Jr., has done an excellent job of researching volumes of information and pulling all the disparate pieces together into a readable story. Reston is a Vietnam-era veteran but not a combat veteran. Although he became an anti-war advocate, his personal views are kept out of the objective telling of this important memorial’s story.

With the nation so divided, it could be expected that building a memorial to the soldiers who fought in the war would turn into a battleground. That’s exactly what happened. The driving force behind the effort was wounded combat veteran Jan Scruggs. “With $2,800 of his own money,” Reston writes, “and being somewhat clueless about the immense hurdles he would be facing, Scruggs began to mobilize a campaign for a memorial that would honor the poignant sacrifices of US servicemen in Vietnam. He imagined such a memorial in a prominent place on the National Mall in Washington, DC.” 

He couldn’t have imagined the amount of vitriol that would occur while his vision was becoming reality. In 1980, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF) put together a judging team for a design competition. “The most important rule was that entries be non-political,” Reston explains. “They were to express no opinion whatsoever about the rightness or wrongness of the Vietnam War itself.” A 20-year-old college student, Maya Lin, won against 1,420 other entries. She envisioned a “rift in the earth in which a long polished black granite wall would emerge from and recede into the landscape,” the author writes. The names of the over 58,000 who died would be inscribed on the walls. Lin wanted an understated, contemplative atmosphere in which visitors could come to terms with the massive loss of life.

The first half of A Rift In The Earth pits Maya Lin against Vietnam War veterans who objected to her design, denouncing it as a “black gash of shame.” They wanted white marble instead of the reflective black granite Lin considered essential to the concept. They wanted statues, flags, and words that glorified a soldier’s sacrifice. This proposal was too far from the “normal” war monument. But those who praised Lin’s simple design didn’t want to glorify war.

As the acrimony increased, her opponents attacked her personally. They called her a “gook,” the term used to describe their Viet Cong enemies during the war. Lin, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, considered herself a typical midwestern American girl, born and raised in the USA.

Opposing sides reached a compromise by agreeing a statue of three soldiers would be placed near the wall. Renowned sculptor Frederick Hart was hired to design it. At this point, the book’s focus becomes Lin vs. Hart, with Lin representing those who wanted a contemplative memorial and Hart representing those who wanted a war monument. While Lin was a college student who received $20,000 for winning a competition, Hart was a famed sculptor who earned $200,000 for designing the statue. Sadly, the two artists attacked each other in interviews. Calling Hart’s sculpture “trite,” Lin said, “It’s a generalization, a simplification. Hart gives you an image—he’s illustrating a book.” Hart said, “Lin’s memorial is intentionally not meaningful. . . . I don’t like art that is contemptuous of life.” The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in 1982 and the Three Soldiers statue in 1984.

An epilogue tells what happened to the two artists.  Lin designed several similar memorials and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016. Hart died in 1999. Scruggs has retired from his position as VVMF leader. 

Did the veterans eventually acknowledge they had been short-sighted and the memorial was a success? “There was basically silence,” Reston writes. “With time the contention faded but did not disappear.” He does not address the lasting impact of the memorial. He doesn’t mention that more than 400,000 items have been left by visitors and preserved by The National Park Service.

Reston acknowledges the beginning of the collection phenomenon: “In the early months of 1984, as emotional scenes were played out at the wall every day, as artifacts by the hundreds—combat boots, family photos, military patches, and even medals—piled up to be collected, cataloged, and stored by the Park Service. . .” 

Now, as The Wall’s 35^th anniversary approaches, funds are being raised to build “The Education Center at The Wall.” Reston doesn’t mention that. He pictures but doesn’t discuss the Vietnam Women’s Memorial statue that was dedicated in 1993. He doesn’t mention the Traveling Walls that have been crisscrossing the nation for 25 years. I’ve visited these half-size replicas in four different cities; I’ve stood watch at the displays and helped catalog the items left by visitors. Maya Lin’s hard-fought concept has most definitely been a mechanism for healing. It’s unfortunate the author didn’t tell his readers what the Vietnam Veterans Memorial has accomplished in its 35 years, how so many veterans have found solace there, how it is a backdrop for numerous ceremonies. He does say “it lives on vibrantly for the millions who visit yearly.” Lacking more detail, the story feels incomplete.

Even so, A Rift In The Earth belongs on the bookshelves of anyone interested in these post-Vietnam issues in our nation’s history. I highly recommend this well-researched and easy-to-follow story of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall.

--Diane Diekman is a retired U.S. Navy captain who grew up in South Dakota and currently lives in Sioux Falls. Her biographies are Live Fast, Love Hard: The Faron Young Story and Twentieth Century Drifter: The Life of Marty Robbins.