|
|
|
|
Looking glass
Memorial celebrates 20th anniversary
 |
Jessica Felt of Alexandria, Va., reaches to
touch a name engraved on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial,
that of a soldier she and her sister Patricia believe
to be a relative. Since its dedication 20 years
ago this week, the Wall has been celebrated and
imitated, analyzed and criticized.
FRANK JOHNSON / THE WASHINGTON POST |
By MONTE REEL
THE WASHINGTON POST
WASHINGTON – Patricia Felt had stood in front
of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial many times before, but
one day last week she saw something she had never noticed:
Her last name engraved in the glossy black granite.
She consulted the catalogue with the list of the war’s
casualties and checked the information – the date
of death, the home town. It caught her off guard; she
had never thought to look for anyone she knew.
“I think that must be uncle Joe’s son,”
she said. “I’ve got to call my sister and
tell her about this.”
A few yards away, Ralph Funk was viewing the memorial
for the first time. “Larry, old boy,” he said,
eyeing the name of his nephew, “I finally got to
see you.” Before he could finish that sentence,
emotion took the 57-year-old veteran by the throat, squeezing
the last two words to a higher pitch.
The two experiences – a new discovery, a first encounter
– were repeated many times during the day, as they
have almost every day for the past 20 years. Felt, of
Alexandria, Va., and Funk, of Western Maryland, are among
more than 40 million people who have made the Wall the
most popular memorial in America.
Since its dedication 20 years ago this week, it has been
celebrated and imitated, analyzed and criticized, amended
and altered. And, as Felt and Funk discovered, the Wall
that lists the names of 58,229 casualties has not lost
its ability to surprise.
“I think of all the people I knew in the war,”
said Susan Hendrickson, an Oregonian visiting for the
first time, slipping past Funk to scan more names. “I
wonder where their names are on this wall. Just look at
all these . . .”
Jan Scruggs shepherded the memorial from an abstract idea
to the mass of stone that stands today. After a tour in
Vietnam, Scruggs studied sociology and collective psychology
at American
|
University.
“This book,” Scruggs says, grabbing Carried
to the Wall by Kristin Ann Hass, a sociologist at the University
of Michigan, “traces fundamental changes in how the
public mourns to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. There are
many examples of things the Memorial influenced, like the
AIDS quilt, and a lot of other similar memorials across
the country. There’s a theory that highway headstones
– the crosses and markers people leave at the scene
of accidents – can be traced back to the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial.”
The memorial itself, he says, can be traced to 1979, when
he watched The Deer Hunter, a movie chronicling the dark
struggles of returning Vietnam veterans. When Scruggs took
his eyes away from the screen, he saw a void unfilled by
ticker tape, molded clay or cast bronze. The shape of this
void, he figured, was monolithic. An obelisk maybe. Something
tall and proud, like every other memorial he’d ever
seen.
Scruggs founded the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund to raise
money for a memorial. He still runs it, working in a downtown
Washington office with a staff of eight. The organization
raises money for the Wall’s upkeep and has launched
an educational program for teachers. It also takes calls
from imitators, and the calls keep coming.
“A problem is starting to surface,” Scruggs
says. “I just got a call from a guy in San Diego who
said, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we had an exact,
full-scale replica in San Diego?’... This thing begat
memorials in all 50 states.”
The memorial fund has no copyright on the design of the
Wall, which Scruggs says might have been a mistake. But
he understands why people who visit want to replicate their
experience at home: It’s a sociological phenomenon
that has to do with collective grieving, healing and the
filling of voids. He just had no idea so many voids would
prove to be the same shape.
Forrest Brandt’s voice falters when he talks about
his first impressions of the Wall as envisioned by young
architect Maya Ying Lin.
“I guess I was still harboring some resentment. I
would hate to admit a racist thought, but I was like, why
an Oriental to design the Vietnam memorial? Isn’t
there a quote-unquote American out there who could do it?
And the design itself just sounded wrong. ‘What do
you mean, a ditch? There’s nothing heroic there, just
a list of dead names,’” he said.
When his veterans group decided to visit the Wall that autumn,
Brandt refused to go.
“I expected them to come back and say, ‘Oh,
it was awful! A disgrace!’ Instead they came back
overwhelmed. To a man, they said it was a stroke of genius,”
he said.
Brandt said he has visited the memorial many times since
then and plans to attend the anniversary ceremonies.
|
|
 |
Matheson wins
By TYLER JOHNSON
UNIVERSITY JOURNAL
On Election Day Tuesday, Utah kept its reputation for being
dominantly republican with every race being won by the Republican
Party except for the seat in the 2nd Congressional District
race.
Republicans control enough of Utah’s government seats
to be in control of the government, according to a Nov. 6 Deseret
News article.
The race for the congressional seat in the 2nd District between
Jim Matheson and John Swallow was the closest race in the state,
according to KSL’s Web site (www.ksl.com).
Late Wednesday, Swallow conceded the election in a press conference
and said it appeared Matheson won despite uncounted ballots
from Daggett and Garfield counties.
Matheson had 50 percent (108,488 votes) and Swallow had 49 percent
(106,473 votes).
Swallow was the favorite in Iron
County by 3,267 votes.
He won 6,111 votes compared to Matheson’s 2,844 votes.
Patrick Diehl, Green Party candidate, won 1.14 percent (2,508)
of the votes district-wide. Ron Copier, Libertarian Party candidate,
won 0.72 percent (1,579) of the votes.
Nationally, Republican candidates gained control of both the
United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives
after Tuesday’s historic mid-term election.
According to cnn.com, “the election marked only the second
time since 1934 that a president’s party didn’t
lose House seats in a midterm ballot – the first time
for a Republican president since 1902.
“The last president whose party gained seats in both houses
of Congress in a midterm election was Franklin Roosevelt, 68
years ago.”
Republicans now have 51 senate seats to Democrats’ 47;
Republicans also now have 228 House seats to Democrats’
205.
One senate seat remains undecided in a Louisiana race; Democratic
Sen. Mary Landrieu must participate in a runoff election because
returns indicated she had not picked up at least 50 percent
of the vote, as required by state law.
Other issues on the Utah ballot yesterday include Utah State
Constitutional Amendment No. 1, which proposed to eliminate
the requirement that part of the interest earnings of the State
School Fund be retained in the fund as protection against inflation
and also provide that dividends from investment of the State
School Fund be spent to support the public education system,
passed with 62.71 percent of voters in favor of it.
Constitutional Amendment No. 2, which authorizes counties that
share common boundaries to make minor adjustments, authorizes
any other move of part of one county to another and requires
a vote of the entire county to move the borders, also passed
with 72.84 percent of the voters in agreement.
Amendment No. 3, which reorganizes and clarifies the Revenue
and Taxation Article and changes the membership of county boards
of equalization from county commissioners to elected
|
|
 |
Samantha Brooks, a sophmore elementary education major
from Slidell, La., and her sister Jessica Brooks, a junior
criminal justice major also from Slidell, vote Tuesday.
ELIZABETH MILLER / UNIVERSITY JOURNAL
|
county officials as provided by state, passed with the support
of 70.12 percent of the popular vote.
Amendment No. 4, which prohibits the legislature from transacting
business during a special session unless the governor gives
48 hours advance public notice of that legislative business
except in cases of declared emergency or with the approval of
two-thirds of the Utah Senate and House of Representatives,
passed with 77.41 percent of the vote.Amendment No. 5, which
changes how the State Constitution designates cities that are
allowed to incur a specified voter-approved debt and clarifies
that the measurement of a county’s debt limit is based
on the value of taxable property in the county, also passed
with 66.24 percent of the voters in agreement.
Amendment No. 6 was the only amendment of the six proposed changes
that failed.
The amendment proposed the Constitution be changed to authorize
the creation of a property tax exemption for property not owned
but used, controlled and possessed by the state or local government.
More than 57 percent of the voters were opposed to this amendment.
Initiative No. 1 failed with nearly 68 percent of the voters
opposed.
The initiative prohibits certain state regulatory agency employees
and board members from employment or lobbying in the field of
radioactive waste disposal or storage for three years after
employment.
The voters allowed all six of the appellate court judges (Russell
W. Bench, Judith H. Billings, James Z. Davis, Pamela T. Greenwood,
Norman H. Jackson and Gregory K. Orme) to remain in office.
J. Phillip Eves, local 5th Judicial District Court judge, was
allowed to stay in office as well.
Debra G. Roberts won the race for the Board of Education for
local 15th District by a 4.96 percent margin over Max L. Torres
|
|
