I Favor the proposed Vietnam Visitor Center

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-11-11-vietnam-memorial_N.htm

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None of those additions compare to the visitors center. The 35,000-square-foot space could cost up to $100 million. The memorial cost $8.4 million, or just under $18 million in today's dollars.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund has raised $15 million. It hopes to open the center by 2012. Final design details must be approved by local review boards, but the project got a boost last month when the advisory U.S. Commission of Fine Arts granted conditional approval.
'A new way of mourning'

Visitors would descend ramps into the center, which the architect says would not be visible from the wall or the Lincoln Memorial. They would see a large screen of changing photos of the more than 58,000 people whose names are engraved in the black granite wall. Their pictures would appear on their birthdays.

Karen Zacharias of Hermiston, Ore., hopes to see a photo of her father, David Spears. He was killed in 1966 at age 34 when she was 9.

She worries about the future.

"What's going to happen in two generations when we have a whole society of people for whom the wall is just a list of names?" she asks. "Without knowing their personal sacrifices … it's just a wall with names on it."

Across from the faces would be some of the 100,000 objects that have been left at the memorial: dog tags, medals, boots, whiskey, stuffed animals, birthday cards, even a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

The memorial "defined a new way of mourning, leaving things" to recall a lost one, says retired Army general Barry McCaffrey, who has helped raise funds.

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I'm inclined to like this concept of the visitor center. People need to remember that as generations move on, new generations need more than the wall with the names to truly honor and memorize those who sacrificed all. I was a supporter of the black wall memorial from day one and I can remember when the design was announced like it was yesterday. I've visited it and think it has done wonders.

However, I also visit a Vietnam veterans memorial near where I live where photos of the veterans are engraved into their wall of memory and it is wonderful (and moving beyond belief) to see the faces and names. Also there is a Huey helicopter which has a "transporting" effect as the visitor gazes on it and remembers. (According to Wikipedia entry: "In Vietnam, 2,202 Huey pilots were killed and approximately 2,500 aircraft were lost, roughly half to combat and the rest to operational accidents.") At this memorial you can gaze at the Huey and imagine what our veterans endured without Hollywood embellishment.

So I am all in favor of what the Vietnam visitor center in Washington proposes to do. I love the idea of cycling through the photos on the days of their birthdays. It's a true memory of the people who were born, lived and died for their country and any visitor will come away from this center spiritually, civically and patriotically enriched.