Round One - Making the Case: 1967-1980

The bitterness I feel when I remember carrying the lifeless bodies of close friends through the mire of Vietnam will probably never subside. I still wonder if anything can be found to bring any purpose to all the suffering and death. I recently came across some lines from a poem by Archibald MacLeish, "The Young Dead Soldiers," which may give that sacrifice some meaning: "They say: We were young. We have died. Remember us." -- Jan C. Scruggs, November 11, 1979.

Beginning in the late 1960s, Round One moves from material on the sorry state of the returning Vietnam War veteran to Jan Scruggs' drive to build a memorial in the middle to late 1970s, and then to Congressional hearings and approval early in 1980, ending with President Carter approving the legislation in July 1980.