American Icons: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen
PRX
4.6 • 675 Ratings
🗓️ 31 May 2018
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How do you build a monument to a war that was more tragic than triumphant? Maya Lin was practically a kid when she got the commission to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall. “The veterans were asking me, ‘What do you think people are going to do when they first come here?’” she remembers. “And I wanted to say, ‘They’re going to cry.’"
Her minimalistic granite wall was derided by one vet as a “black gash of shame.” But inscribed with the name of every fallen soldier, it became a sacred place for veterans and their families, and it influenced later designs like the National September 11 Memorial.
We’ll visit a replica of the wall that travels to veterans’ parades around the country, and hear from former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel how this singular work of architecture has influenced how we think about war.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | from PRX |
| 0:03.4 | This is Studio 360. |
| 0:10.4 | I'm Curtis, and I'm sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. |
| 0:13.5 | This first level of garden. |
| 0:14.8 | This is Thomas Jefferson's vegetable garden. |
| 0:16.7 | I like to have the roasted chicken base. |
| 0:18.4 | Very well done. |
| 0:19.5 | Editing is all about timing. |
| 0:21.2 | I try to get a little bit away from the actual subject. |
| 0:23.8 | You must get sick of your own voice, right? |
| 0:26.2 | Studio 360. |
| 0:28.3 | It's good. |
| 0:28.9 | Anderson. |
| 0:35.1 | This is Studio 360. |
| 0:36.5 | I'm Kurt Anderson, and right now I am looking at panel 22 west of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial here in Washington. |
| 0:46.0 | A little more than halfway down is the name Frederick D. Blackwell. |
| 0:51.3 | His widow, Asineth Blackwell, comes here twice a year on Memorial Day and Veterans Day |
| 0:56.6 | to look at her late husband's name on this panel. In my mind, my husband is still 24, still |
| 1:05.6 | looks 24, but I'm 71. I was going home to Pennsylvania. |
| 1:12.1 | Mind you, this was in 1967. |
| 1:16.0 | And I'm standing there waiting for them to call the bus for Union Town. |
| 1:20.3 | And all of a sudden I heard this boom. |
... |
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