It's not stated in this article, but I well remember when the winning design was chosen that some objected to the fact that the designer is of Asian descent.

Maya Lin went on to design the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama a few years later.

http://www.mayalin.com/

Great article! I have always this monument to be moving.

It's a real tribute to the artist's genius that this memorial is one of the most popular in the United States. though I do wonder if it's just a generational thing that will pass with time.

Either way, great article.

Maya Lin has amazing vision. When I heard the controversy about the design, I thought it was going to be just another silly, avant garde public art installation that subtly mocked the war. Instead, it turned out to be most evocative memorial in the world.

Foreign nationals who served with US forces in Vietnam are not included. Canadian Vietnam veterans who served with US forces (Canada did not participate)and were killed or missing in action, are memorialized at the Canadian Vietnam War memorial on the shores of the St. Clair River in Windsor, Ontario, directly across from Detroit.

I should note that it was American Vietnam veterans who recognized the gap and worked to see that their Canadian brothers were not forgotten.

If there is one place definitely I would want to visit when I sometimes would go to the USA, it is this monument.

As a veteran, it is difficult to speak of The Wall without being gripped by emotion. The Wall serves as a portal to another place in time, a place where brothers at arms can remember and grieve, where women revisit the husbands or fathers they loved and lost, where children can be introduced to grandfathers they never knew. The black granite walls heal, teach and mourn but most of all they remember. Why is that so important? Veterans know a soldier is never truly dead until he is forgotten.