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Vietnam had been divided into North and South Vietnam in 1954. The communist government of Ho Chi Minh controlled North Vietnam, and a noncommunist government controlled South Vietnam. In the late 1950s the Vietcong began fighting to overthrow the United States-backed government of South Vietnam. Afraid of the "domino theory" the United States aided South Vietnam, Congress issued the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing President Johnson to "take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force," to prevent further aggression.
The Vietnam Memorial
 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial recognizes and honors the men and women who served in one of America's most divisive wars. The memorial grew out of a need to heal the nation's wounds as America struggled to reconcile different moral and political points of view. In fact, the memorial was conceived and designed to make no political statement whatsoever about the war. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a place where everyone, regardless of opinion, can come together and remember and honor those who served. By doing so, the memorial has paved the way towards reconciliation and healing, a process that continues today. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial accomplishes these goals through the three components that comprise the memorial: the Wall of names, the Three Servicemen Statue and Flagpole, and the Vietnam Women's Memorial. We invite you to explore this Web site so that you may understand the significance behind one of America's most important memorials.
"...this memorial is for those who have died, and for us to remember them."
- Maya Ying Lin, designer,
Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall
Words From the Heart
Then I began to move my hands over the Wall -
over names I did not know,
slow at first, and then faster, almost frantically -
at first not knowing why -
but then knowing -
I was looking for one name,
I was looking for the one groove my hands would know the best,
the one that would confirm what I always knew
to be true but was afraid to admit,
a name that wasn't there but should have been-
mine.
It was that realization, that surprise,
when it all rushed in, the horribleness too horrible to remember -
too awful to forget -
When it all came back in on me - overwhelming me,
forcing me to face what I could not accept
The source of my guilt, my one great sin -
I had lived, I had survived. I came back...
I left the Wall.
I ascended out of that deep, dark hole a different person.
Tired, emotionally exhausted,
I stood there looking back where I had been.
I knew my pain had not magically left me -
I carry it with me today - but I carry it, it no longer carries me.
This was the healing I could not find before -
The Wall told me my name was not there
and said go live your life, you do not belong here.
And so I do, live my life now, beyond the Wall.
Patrick Overton, Ph.D.
Columbia, MO
excerpt from The Healing W
all
A Soldier's Own Obituary
Major John Alexander Hottell III wrote his own obituary while serving in Vietnam. He was killed in a helicopter crash on July 7, 1970.
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"I am writing my own obituary for several reasons, and I hope none of them are too trite. First, I would like to spare my friends, who may happen to read this, the usual clichés about being a good soldier. They were all kind enough to me, and I not enough to them. Second, I would not want to be a party to perpetuation of an image that is harmful and inaccurate: "glory" is the most meaningless of concepts, and I feel that in some cases it is doubly damaging. And third, I am quite simply the last authority on my own death.
I loved the Army: it reared me, it nurtured me, and it gave me the most satisfying years of my life. Thanks to it I have lived an entire lifetime in 26 years. It is only fitting that I should die in its service. We all have but one death to spend, and insofar as it can have any meaning, it finds it in the service of comrades in arms.
And yet, I deny that I died FOR anything—not my country, not my Army, not my fellow man, none of these things. I LIVED for these things, and the manner in which I chose to do it involved the very real chance that I would die in the execution of my duties. I knew this, and accepted it, but my love for West Point and the Army was great enough—and the promise that I would some day be able to serve all the ideals that meant anything to me through it was great enough for me to accept this possibility as a part of a price which must be paid for all things of great value. If there is nothing worth dying for—in this sense—there is nothing worth living for.
I have known what it is like to be married to a fine and wonderful woman and to love her beyond bearing with the sure knowledge that she loves me; I have commanded a company and been a father priest, income-tax adviser, confessor, and judge for 200 men at one time; I have played college football and rugby, won the British national diving championship two years in a row, boxed for Oxford against Cambridge only to be knocked out in the first round, and played handball to distraction—and all of these sports I loved, I learned at West Point. They gave me hours of intense happiness.
I have experienced all these things because I was in the Army and because I was an Army brat. The Army is my life, it is such a part of what I was that what happened is the logical outcome of the life I loved. I never knew what it is to fail, I never knew what it is to be too old or too tired to do anything. I lived a full life in the Army, and it has exacted the price. It is only just."
(abridged version)
—Major John Alexander Hottell III | |
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Click photos to enlarge.
Date: 1966
Title: Long Khanh Province, Republic of Vietnam...a soldier of 4th Battalion, 503rd Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade, lifts his battle weary eyes to the heavens, as if to ask "why"? Another soldier stares down at their fallen comrade. The day's battle ended, they silently await the helicopter which will evacute their comrade from the jungle-covered hills.
Source: National Archives and Records Administration
Date: June 1970
Title: Saigon, South Vietnam... A Marine Staff Sergeant helps the children of the St. Vincent de Paul Orphanage in Vietnam in her off-duty hours.
Source: National Archives and Records Administration
Date: May 13, 1968
Title: A Medic from Company B, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry, 25th Infantry Division, paddles a three-man assault boat down the canal toward a breaking point during Operation Tong Thang I.
Source: National Archives and Records Administration
Date: January 18, 1968
Title: OPERATION "YELLOWSTONE" VIETNAM: Following a hard day, a few members of company "A", 3rd Battalion, 22nd Infantry (Mechanized), 25th Infantry Division, gather around a guitar player and sing a few songs.
Source: National Archives and Records Administration
Date: 1969
Title: Soldiers carry a wounded comrade through a swampy area.
Source: National Archives and Records Administration
Date: December 10, 1965
Title: Men of H Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, move along rice paddy dikes in pursuit of the Viet Cong.
Source: National Archives and Records Administration
Date: 1966
Title: A Medic and fellow soldier of the First Cavalry Division.
Source: Photo by Henri Huet, REQUIEM By The Photographers Who Died in Vietnam and Indochina, Random House 1997
Date: 1966
Title: U.S. Marines forward reconnaissance patrol sets up to counter attack North Vietnamese infiltration south of the DMZ.
Source: Photo by Larry Burrows, REQUIEM By The Photographers Who Died in Vietnam and Indochina, Random House 1997
Date: February 12, 1973
Title: Camp Pendleton, California. Operation Homecoming--Wives of Marines stationed at Marine Corps Base, Camp Pendleton, wait at the Naval Air Station, Miramar for repatriated Marine prisoners of war to arrive.
Source: National Archives and Records Administration
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