of The Wall taken on April 26, 2002, by the
United States Geological Survey. The dots visible along the length of the angled wall are visitors. For a satellite view of the Wall in relation to other monuments, see
Constitution Gardens.
Memorial Wall The memorial is composed of two adjoining walls. Each wall is long and is composed of 72
black granite panels that are polished to a high finish. Seventy of the panels on each wall are inscribed with the names of the men and women being honored. The walls taper from tall at their extremities to tall at the apex where they meet, their bottom edges descending below the level of the surrounding earth while their top edges stay level. As such, visitors walking the length of the memorial start at ground level, descend below it, and ascend back to ground level. This is symbolic of a "wound that is closed and healing" and exemplifies the
Land art movement of the 1960s, which produced sculptures that sought to reconnect with the natural environment. The stone for the 144 panels was quarried in Bangalore, India. One wall points to the
Washington Monument, the other to the
Lincoln Memorial, meeting at an angle of 125° 12′. Each wall has 72 panels, 70 listing names (numbered 1E through 70E and 70W through 1W), and two very small blank panels at the extremities. A pathway for visitors extends along the base of the Wall. The names on the Wall, originally numbering 57,939 when it was dedicated in 1982, are listed in the chronological order of the dates of casualty. Directories of the names and their locations are located on nearby podiums at both ends of the Memorial. The memorial has had some unforeseen maintenance issues. In 1984, cracks were detected in the granite and, as a result, two of the panels were temporarily removed in 1986 for study. More cracks were later discovered in 2010. There are a number of hypotheses about the cause of the cracks, the most common being due to thermal cycling. In 1990, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund purchased several blank panels to use in case any were ever damaged; these were placed into storage at Quantico Marine Base. Two of the blank panels were shattered by the
2011 Virginia earthquake.
Names Inscribed on the Memorial are the names of service members who were classified as dead, missing, or prisoner. The list includes names of individuals who died due to circumstances other than
killed in action, including murder, vehicle accidents, drowning, heart attack, animal attack, snake bites and others. The names are inscribed in
Optima typeface, designed by
Hermann Zapf. The earliest date of eligibility for a name to be included on the Memorial is November 1, 1955, which corresponds to when
President Eisenhower deployed the Military Assistance Advisory Group to train the
Army of the Republic of Vietnam. The last date of eligibility is May 15, 1975, which corresponds to the final day of the
Mayaguez incident. The names are listed in chronological order, starting at the apex on panel 1E on July 8, 1959, moving day by day to the end of the eastern wall at panel 70E, which ended on May 25, 1968, starting again at panel 70W at the end of the western wall, completing the list for May 25, 1968, and returning to the apex at panel 1W in 1975. There are some deaths that predate July 8, 1959, There are eight women's names included in the memorial—Eleanor Grace Alexander, Pamela Dorothy Donovan,
Carol Ann Drazba,
Annie Ruth Graham, Elizabeth Ann Jones, Mary Therese Klinker,
Sharon Ann Lane, and Hedwig Diane Orlowski. All were nurses.
Three Servicemen A component of the Memorial, located a few feet away from the Wall, is a
bronze statue named
Three Servicemen (sometimes called
Three Soldiers) created by
Frederick E Hart. The work depicts three soldiers. Two are purposefully identifiable as
European American and
African American, while the third is intended to represent all other ethnic groups in America. In their final arrangement, the statue and the Wall appear to interact with one another, with the soldiers looking on in solemn tribute at the names of their fallen comrades. The distance between the two allows them to interact without affecting the design of the other. The
Three Servicemen was not part of Maya Lin’s original design and was added two years later in response to veteran support.
Vietnam Women's Memorial The Vietnam Women's Memorial is dedicated to the women of the United States who served in the Vietnam War, most of whom were nurses. It serves as a reminder of the importance of women in the conflict. It depicts three uniformed women with a wounded soldier. It is located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., a short distance south of The Wall, north of the Reflecting Pool. It was authorized by separate legislation from that of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
In Memory memorial plaque A memorial plaque, authorized by an Act of Congress (), was dedicated on November 10, 2004, at the northeast corner of the plaza surrounding the Three Soldiers statue to honor veterans who died after the war as a result of injuries suffered in Vietnam, but who fall outside
Department of Defense guidelines. The plaque is a carved block of black granite, , inscribed "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." Ruth Coder Fitzgerald, the founder of The Vietnam War In Memory Memorial Plaque Project, worked for years to have the In Memory Memorial Plaque completed. The organization has been dissolved, but its web site is maintained by the Vietnam War Project at
Texas Tech University. ==Ritual==