The Vietnam War memorial in Washington DC is, in my view, the most impressive in its way of any war memorial I have seen anywhere in the world. Generally, war memorials are a triumphal arch, or a monolith, or some variation of these, such as the Menin gate. The Vietnam memorial is different. It resembles nothing so much as a great scar cut into the land itself, a self inflicted wound, created by those who continued to pour more and more men into the fight rather than face up the possibility they were putting ideology over the well-being of the nation. As one of the protest songs of the time had it "Lyndon Johnson told a nation Have no fear of escalation I am trying everyone to please. Though it isn't really war I'm sending 50 thousand more The help save Vietnam from the Vietnamese". Those who have eyes to see...
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