“…Let us strive on to
finish the work we are in: to bind up the nations wounds; to care for him who
shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan; to do all which
may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all
nations.” - Abraham Lincoln
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| Individual mourning at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial |
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| Individual mourning at the 9/11 Memorial |
“How do you memorialize a painfully
mired, drawn-out defeat that called into question the most fundamental tenets
of American patriotism?”(1) This was the problem presented to the nation
in early Spring 1979 when a group of Vietnam veterans voiced a desire for a
Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Veteran Jan
Scruggs hoped that a memorial would “begin a healing process, a reconciliation
of the grievous divisions wrought by the war.”[2] Many were surprised however when a myriad of
things began showing up at the bottom of the memorial. What do these things mean? Hass argues that by bringing things and
leaving them at the memorial, individuals are making the memorial their own and
creating not a singular memory of Vietnam but a collective memory.
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| Items left at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial |
After reading The
Presence of the Past last week and discovering that the public is most
interested in a personal past as opposed to a collective national past, I did
not find the concept of making individual memorials at the national memorial
strange. It seems to fit the ideology of
the public in relation to the past. Historian
John Gillis has written that “the reality is that the nation is no longer the
site or frame of memory for most people, and therefore national history is no
longer a proper measure of what people really know about their pasts.”(3) This is an echo of our discussion of last
week and yet Hass disagrees with this statement. She argues that the individuals coming to the
Wall are there out of a sense of nationalism.
They are working through their own individual feelings on the war and
recovering their sense of the nation.
With this past Friday marking the 14th Anniversary of the
September 11th attacks I wish to present two differing views on this
debate and then open it up to group discussion.
I find
myself, regrettably, tending to agree with Gillis’s assessment that the nation
is no longer relevant in terms of memory.
Despite the fact that the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is engaging in the
fact that one can feel the names, take rubbings, and see one’s own reflection
it does not seem to be enough. The
engagement does not appear to be personal.
The granite of the memorial is cold and unfamiliar. In an effort to personalize the war and the
experiences that the war left, individuals are bringing items to the memorial
to create their own voice and give the memorial meaning to them.
An overhead view of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Notice how cold and impersonal it appears from here.
In Hass’s defense
however, after September 11, 2001 there was a surge in nationalism and
patriotism. Letters, plaques and various
other items lined the fences surrounding the former World Trade Centers and in
the Pennsylvania field where the plane crashed.
In following Hass’s argument these items which were brought to
make-shift memorials have increased nationalism. One can argue that the circumstances are
different, that the Vietnam Memorial recognizes an unpopular war and the 9/11
memorials recognize a horrific national disaster. Where this argument is true, an unpopular war
which spurned the same kind of mistrust of the government came from the
September 11th attacks and yet these memorials are still treated in
the same fashion as the Vietnam Memorial.
Individuals flock to the 9/11 memorials and despite the fact that actual
items are not allowed, some do find their way in. The items and flowers left at the 9/11
memorials are no different than the items left at the Vietnam Memorial. They are individuals’ ways of voicing their
own personal memories and feelings about an event and making that event
personal to themselves.
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| An original 9/11 memorial that popped up in the direct aftermath of the tragedy. |
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| Family members taking a rubbing of a name at the 14th Anniversary event held last Friday at the 9/11 Memorial. Notice the NYPD hat; hats, helmets, flags and flowers are left regularly at the Memorial. |
And so I ask you, are the items brought to
memorials recognizing a shared national past as Hass is attempting to argue; or
are the items creating a personal memory distant from a collective national
past?
[1]
Kristen Ann Hass, Carried to the Wall, (University
of California Press,1998),12.
[2]
Ibid., 13.
[3] Ibid., 102.
I agree with your analysis of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial as “cold and impersonal” but also wanted to present an alternative viewpoint. Perhaps the design of the Vietnam memorial seems cold and unfamiliar as part of its design. As Hass presents in her text, many of the objects left at the memorial contextualized many of the less nationalistic aspects of war in American memory. Some of these objects may represent citizens’ unreconciled memories of the Vietnam War – responses that are often visibly “cold” and “impersonal” because of their dissatisfaction and lack of understanding with the national government. In the same vein, the visibility of more “patriotic” items left behind also allow for a more patriotic memory of the war. The memorial’s design allows for these extreme dualities. The unassuming presentation of the memorial encourages visitors to confront this duality.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that you showed, regardless that the 9/11 memorials do not allow objects to be left behind, citizens do so and in large numbers. It seems the more modern memorials reinforce the evolution of memorials that Hass wrote about. For example, the Vietnam Memorial was the first to “change the ways in which Americans imagined and understood their community, and in doing so it changed American memorial practices” (2). At 9/11 memorials across the nation people are voicing what Sara wrote as “their own personal memories and feelings.” Likewise, the Vietnam Memorial was one of the first memorials to help foster personalized memories and so influence public memory. An interesting question is how is individualized memorial memory influencing public memory at-large? This reflects Sara’s question of how do items create a memory distant from a collective?