One thing I hate: war.
One thing I love: war memorials.
I'm sure there will always be a place for the figurative
statue, the general on a horse, etc., but I'm also grateful to live in a post
Vietnam War Memorial/Maya Lin era.
I know many of you have been to DC and experienced the awe-some-ness of
it, and if not--you really need to.
I've been a dozen times and it's difficult, even after all of this exposure,
when I go alone not to be so affected that the merest attempt to speak would
end in me crying. Maya's genius
was to decommission the pre-eminent role of two afore to necessary players: 1)
The General/commanding officer as hero surrogate of the rank and file soldier,
and 2) The anonymous figurative statue--the nameless everyman (woman) of
war. She created a place to
remember the persons who actually died with no more embellishment than their
name. Utterly shocking at the
time, but since ubiquitous in memorials to the dead of every tragedy of public
note.
From this idea there are also some outstanding evolutions of
design/meaning. One of my
favorites is the Kentucky state Vietnam War Memorial in Frankfort. It's a giant sundial with concentric
circles bearing the names of Kentucky's fallen soldiers, and on the day of
their death each year, at noon, the shadow crosses the center of their
name. It's a holy moment that
happens whether anyone is there to notice or not.
And this Armed Forces Memorial in Norfolk is certainly
another that deserves to be experienced and treasured. At first glance, it doesn't look like
much--little rectangles of twisted metal strewn across a plaza on the edge of
the ocean. Like pieces of brown paper
blown ashore. And then you notice
there are words attached and soon you understand that they are actually letters
blown back across time... Each is
a member of a branch of the armed forces who wrote of their experiences and who
died in the conflict in which they served. Every war up to the present is represented.
Before you deign to read the sampling I have included here--you
may want to grab a box of Kleenex.
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