This Thanksgiving, holiday travel may evoke thoughts of future destinations far and grand leading one to recharge and refresh, but if the soul needs to contemplate for greater solace, visiting our nation’s capital may be the answer.
Among the monuments, buildings and memorials, two iconic symbols of freedom lie just opposite of each other on the Washington Mall. Like bookends bracing the story of our unique but imperfect past, the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial may be the most recognizable and photographed structures in D.C.
However, between the two, quietly engraved in the soil like those it represents, who now lay elsewhere, is a memorial dedicated to those who lived in a time of social unrest, inequality and a nation questioning its identity — the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
These men, drafted by their leaders and sent away to the eastern hemisphere of the world, facing arduous weather and terrain with cities and villages full of people familiar with foreign occupation, are alive, vaguely though. Only in memory do they live, thanks to a granite wall and one of many faithful souls who understand that to be forgotten is an immeasurable injustice.
Les Davidson, a volunteer for the memorial and a Vietnam veteran himself, walks about the area, answering questions from anyone wishing to inquire. With a voice mild in tone but still commanding respect, Davidson is intimate with the knowledge pertaining to the wall, its symbolism and history.
Dedicated on Nov. 13, 1982, and designed by Maya Lin, then a young undergraduate from Yale, the wall commemorates the approximately 58,281 service members who died in the Vietnam War.
Through an open and blind competition with oversight from the Federal National Parks Services and funded by a private veterans organization, Lin entered her design and was selected out of 1,400 competitors, some having already established themselves as serious architects. Designed using elements of minimalist architecture, the wall symbolized a tear in the earth due to the war’s controversy, one of many causes of division at that time in our nation’s history.
However, public backlash was sparked as the memorial seemed too modern and unfit to be in D.C. When asked about the memorial’s layout, Davidson explained that Lin knew the war was controversial and therefore envisioned a wall looking like scars healing from a knife stabbing the Earth and pulled back where the two ends meet, eventually healing over time.

The wall has no intricate designs nor ornaments. Names cover the dark granite to keep the focus on the true cost of war– lives.
The granite wall, though, does not take into account the millions of lives lost in Vietnam and the Southern Asian theater of operation. Few memorials in D.C. attribute any mention of innocent people that have died in conflicts that involved the United States military.
The only markings one will find on the wall are those that help to indicate the status of the service member, whether missing or dead. “The missing have been on the wall since the start,” Davidson said. “The casualties have a small diamond by the name […] the missing have a small plus mark.” “When they built the wall 41 years ago, there were over 1,200 missing … today, just over 700,” he added. “So they have been able to find and identify a good number of the missing.”
The dates of when the war began and ended also accompany the names, seen as the first and last chapters of a book that has finally concluded for some. No other references or images were placed on the memorial. Though Lin’s intentions were misunderstood by many and her design publicly mocked, the memorial would prove over time to be a place of healing and closure for those who served or were personally affected by the war in some way.
Two years after its unveiling, the Three Servicemen statue was introduced adjacent from the memorial to accommodate and show the diversity of service members.

When asked if there was a message to convey to the readers pertaining to the cost of freedom and the measure of sacrifice it takes to keep it, Davidson said, “That’s something they got to learn. Come to the wall.”
Memorials, like other pieces of art, convey a message to the public to stop and think deeply about the issues of life. They help us to prioritize and bring into perspective what’s important and can challenge us to find ways to better communicate our differences if possible.
This post-election season has brought much contention in our communities and even homes. Thanksgiving is a time to reflect upon our lives and to find the good we can appreciate and be grateful for.
However, for some, the word “freedom” may sound controversial for our time, but reflecting on those that are willing to serve for our national safety and those that have answered the call to go may in some degree, as far-fetched as it sounds, bring us to the table with a sense of unity and humility that can calm and restore the most hostile environments, even if only for a while.