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The Wall: Images and Offerings from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
A celebration of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, this volume is a combination of intimate and emotionally charged photographs and touching letters and messages left at the Memorial
- GenresNonfictionHistoryWar
Hardcover
First published October 1, 1987
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 16, 2020
I found this book at a Goodwill type store for a dollar and knew I needed to bring it home. It sits on top of my bookshelf and I am proud to have it there. So today, when I put together more shelves I decided that this book needs to be read and the pictures need to be seen. I cried all the way through it. My dad was in this war and it has messed up his life ever since. He held parts of himself together, but he could not control his dreams. This book will forever stay in my collection as a reminder of what happened. I wasnt alive then, but I can help remember the lives now.
February 28, 2015
I've never done the whole book because it makes me cry but this morning I read the whole thing crying all the while. I've been there now and it makes me sad. So much loss
February 13, 2023
I was in DC in December 2022 to introduce kids to all the history, all the memorials, art museums. You know, Yellowstone, The Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, check. . . but you know, with none of them is it really just a cliche. They are iconic for profound reasons. And for this one, DC, you get to see the National Gallery, The Smithsonian, the Lincoln Memorial, all the war memorials, all the witnessing to the dead. And the flat, close-to-the ground Viet Nam memorial, designed by Maya Lin. 247-foot long “V” composed of two walls that meet at a 125-degree angle, listing the name of 58,000 American soldiers. The Wall. Commemorating (American) humans lost in what most historians now agree was a military disaster. And unpopular war that bitterly divided the country for many years. "Bring our boys home." "So it's two, three, four, what are we fightin' for? Don't ask me, I don't give a damn." "America: Love it for Leave it."
And then there's this subtle, low-to-the-ground, understated, quietly powerful memorial that connects to me personally in certain ways. Every time I have visited this memorial I have wept, and I still saw people crying with me, decades post-war. My cousin, Ron (Berg) Vandenberg was 19 when he was killed in Nam on his very first time leading a patrol into the jungle, within two hours! He was an honor student, a college baseball shortstop with a .356 batting average, and he wanted to go and serve his country, so he left college. He believed the hype about the domino theory, maybe. I'll never know. I never talked to him about it.
Berg was five years older than me, so I never really knew him, and I never served in Nam--I was drafted but the draft ended before I had to go--and I had protested against the war--yet every time I find and touch his name on that wall, I am in tears. Why? So many things. Such a waste, all these children's wars fought for ill-conceived purposes, such a loss of life and the birth of trauma. But every time I am there I am less angry than just deeply sad for all the families represented there.
This book, that I own, and visits to The Wall, always bring me back to Berg, and that war, that I hated so much. Kent State, Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter, O'Brien's The Things They Carried, the PBS Viet Nam series, the anti-war poetry of Robert Bly, all of these confirm for me that my activism against that war, and my pacifism, was the right thing for me to do, but Berg was family, and we all come together in my politically mixed family about those in our families that served, and all those that gave up their lives.
And then there's this subtle, low-to-the-ground, understated, quietly powerful memorial that connects to me personally in certain ways. Every time I have visited this memorial I have wept, and I still saw people crying with me, decades post-war. My cousin, Ron (Berg) Vandenberg was 19 when he was killed in Nam on his very first time leading a patrol into the jungle, within two hours! He was an honor student, a college baseball shortstop with a .356 batting average, and he wanted to go and serve his country, so he left college. He believed the hype about the domino theory, maybe. I'll never know. I never talked to him about it.
Berg was five years older than me, so I never really knew him, and I never served in Nam--I was drafted but the draft ended before I had to go--and I had protested against the war--yet every time I find and touch his name on that wall, I am in tears. Why? So many things. Such a waste, all these children's wars fought for ill-conceived purposes, such a loss of life and the birth of trauma. But every time I am there I am less angry than just deeply sad for all the families represented there.
This book, that I own, and visits to The Wall, always bring me back to Berg, and that war, that I hated so much. Kent State, Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter, O'Brien's The Things They Carried, the PBS Viet Nam series, the anti-war poetry of Robert Bly, all of these confirm for me that my activism against that war, and my pacifism, was the right thing for me to do, but Berg was family, and we all come together in my politically mixed family about those in our families that served, and all those that gave up their lives.
June 30, 2018
Very moving, emotional, and powerful book. It touched my heart deeply for a person that wasn't born yet to have experienced any of it. My heart goes out to all those who was affected by this war.
A must read.
A must read.
February 7, 2019
Uses some good imagery and ends on a realistic note. Story of a boy and his father visiting the Vietnam memorial wall in Washington, DC. Social studies use.
October 21, 2022
A beautiful heart-rending tribute to the Vietnam Wall and those whose names are engraved there. May we never forget those who never felt their homeland beneath their feet again. 💔
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews