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...