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3/1985. Getting feelings in the open.

"Coming to Grips with Vietnam," by John Wheeler, Foreign Affairs, Spring 1985: 747ff. "The monument has become a sign of powerful pyschological dynamics and personal feelings that do not ordinarily surface in public -- though they are often articulated in private. Placing them in the open is a necessary step, both for public understanding and for assuring that these attitudes are seen in proper proportion, as just one aspect of the social currents that influence policymaking." [FullText]

3/21/1985. A book about Scruggs and the building of the wall.

"Jan Scruggs' Memorial Book," by Chuck Conconi, Washington Post, 03/21/85: D3. "Jan C. Scruggs, the wounded Vietnam veteran who fought forces he never expected to in order to see the monument built, has written a book with Joel L. Swerdlow about his battles through Congress, government agencies, the White House and even with some of his former veterans. The book, 'To Heal a Nation,' will be published next month by Harper & Row to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the end of American involvement in Vietnam." [FullText]

4/14/1985. It's the names, the names.

"The Black Gash of Shame," New York Times, 04/14/85: 4: 22. "It cannot be surprising that the chasms broken open in American society by Vietnam are taking years to heal. What is something of surprise is how quickly America has overcome the divisions caused by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. . . . What explains such rapid triumph over controversy? . . . Most of all, the explanation is the names. Jointly and severally, as the lawyers say, they create a memorial at once national and personal." [FullText]

4/15/1985. A national shrine.

"Hush, Timmy - this is like a church," by Kurt Anderson, Time, 04/15/85: 61. "In person, close up, the Viet Nam Veterans Memorial--two skinny black granite triangle wedged onto a mound of Washington sod--is some kind of sanctum, beautiful and terrible. 'We didn't plan that,' says John Wheeler, chairman of the veterans' group that raised of the veteran's group that raised the money and built it. 'I had a picture of seven-year-olds throwing a Frisebee around on the grass in front. But it's treated as a spiritual place.' When Wheeler's colleague Jan Scruggs decided there ought to be a monument, he had only vague notions of what if might be like. 'You don't set out and build a national shrine,' Scruggs says. 'It becomes one.'" [FullText]

5/1985. Scruggs's book.

"To Heal a Nation," by Joel Swerdlow, National Geographic, May 1985: 557-73. Based on the book Swerdlow did on Scruggs and the process of developing the wall. [FullText]

5/13/1985. Vietnam celebrates the anniversary of its victory.

"Vietnam's Awkward Drill," by Nancy Cooper, Newsweek, 05/13/85: 48. "With mixed artillery and brass, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam celebrated the 10th anniversary of the fall of Saigon." [FullText]

6/1985.

"The Vietnam Veterans Memorial: Public Art and Politics," by Catherine M. Howett, Landscape 28.2 (1985): 1-9. [FullText]

6/18/1985. Scruggs on the job market.

"Veteran for Hire," by James Clarity and Warren Weaver, New York Times, 06/18/85: A22. Reports that Jan Scruggs is looking for a job, "a new cause," a "challenging career." [FullText]

7/8/1985.

"Vietnam Momentoes," by Barbara Carton, Washington Post, 07/08/85: A1. [FullText]

8/31/1985. Critiquing the design.

"Art: the Vietnam Veterans Memorial," by Arthur C. Danto, Nation, 08/31/85: 153-56. "This brings me to my chief criticism of Lin's work, which concerns an incongruity between narrative and form. An effort has been made to make the slight angle meaningful by having the narrative begin and end there: RICHARD VANDE GEER is at the bottom right of the west panel and DALE R. BUIS is at the top left of the east panel on either side of the joint. As though a circle were closed, and after the end is the beginning. But a circle has the wrong moral geometry for a linear conflict: the end of a war does not mean, one hopes, the beginning of a war." [FullText]

9/1985.

"The Wall," by Christopher Buckley, Esquire, September 1985: 61-73. [FullText]

9/1985. Jan Scruggs memorandum to file: "Conversation with Christopher Buckley."

[PDF]

11/1985.

"Sculptor Frederick Hart: At the Vietnam Memorial, Three Figures Ex Nihilo," by William F. Ryan, Virginia Country, November/December 1985: 21-27. [FullText]

6/11/1986. Medals for the memorial leaders?

"Memories of Vietnam," by Wayne King and Irvin Molotsky, New York Times, 06/11/86: B1. "A close vote is expected today on a bill that would authorize the award of Congressional Gold Medals to the three people (Scruggs, Doubek, Wheeler) who mounted the successful campaign to establish the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. . . . strong opposition has developed. . . . there is a residue of high emotion over the design of the memorial, and indeed of the war itself." [FullText]

6/12/1986. Medals denied.

"No Medals for Memorial," by Phil McCombs, Washington Post, 05/12/86: D1. "In yet another chapter in the long, bitter struggle over the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the House of Representatives voted yesterday not to award prestigious Congressional Gold Medals to three veterans who headed the effort ot build it." [FullText]

6/30/1986. The gift of loyalty.

"At last, loyalty makes the headlines," by William Broyles, Jr., U.S. News & World Report, 06/30/86: 13. "Unfortunately, the gift of loyalty those young men were giving their country has not always been carefully treated, as the names on the Vietnam Memorial remind us. And, once given, that gift is all too often forgotten." [FullText]

9/21/1986. Canadians visit the wall.

"Canada's Viet Vets Weep Openly at U. S. Memorial Wall," by Brian McAndrew, Toronto Star, 09/21/86: A1. "About 100 Canadians who served in the U.S. military during the war made the pilgrimage to the memorial." [FullText]

11/9/1986. More memorials springing up.

"143 Vietnam Memorials, Vast and Small, Rising Around Nation," by Ben A. Franklin, New York Times, 11/09/86: 26. "Compilers of a survey reported that 143 privately financed Vietnam veterans' memorials had been completed or were under way in 43 states, Puerto Rico and American Samoa." [FullText]

11/10/1986. The magic power of the wall.

"A ritual for saying goodbye," by William Broyles, Jr., U.S. News & World Report, 11/10/86: 19. "I have been coming to the Wall since it was dedicated back in 1982, at all hours of the day and night, in snow, rain and fog. I have never seen it without someone else there. And that is how it should be, for this monument to the dead has a magic power on the living. Those who come to the Wall become part of it. They touch it, rub it, sing to it, pray against it, stare at it -- and they talk to it. The Wall is like a character in a play whose silence makes all the other characters speak." [FullText]

"Record Numbers Stream to the Vietnam Wall," by Stewart Powell, U.S. News & World Report, 11/10/86: 16. "But to a degree unprecedented at any other memorial in America, relatives and friends are bringing offerings to their dead, from a pack of Lucky Strikes or a cap spontaneously laid down to carefully framed photographs and handwritten letters of love." [FullText]

5/1987.

"The Wall That Heals," by William Broyles, Jr., Readers' Digest, May 1987: 70-76. See 11/10/86. [FullText]

11/11/1987. The wall makes you think.

"Lest We Forget," by Michael Norman, New York Times, 11/11/87: A31. "The memorial is a way back and a way forward. A walk along 'the wall' makes us think of the future in the language of the past and, whatever message one draws from this, it seems unlikely that anyone who makes that walk will be able to think of war and the men who fight it in quite the same way again." [FullText]

5/27/1988. Scruggs and the process of building the wall on film.

"How the Vietnam Memorial Came to Be," by Arthur Unger, Christian Science Monitor, 05/27/88: 23. Announcing the film on Scruggs and the building of the memorial -- To Heal a Nation. [FullText]

5/29/1988. To Heal a Nation," the made-for-tv movie about the drive by Scruggs to build the memorial, airs.

5/29/1988. Reactions to the film.

"Memorial Deserved Better," by Eric Mink, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 05/29/88: 6H. "You cannot fault To Heal a Nation for its intent. . . . The memorial, however, is not the film. It is possible, therefore, to fault [the movie] for the serious dramatic flaws that tend to trivialize the achievement and the people who made it happen. The chief defect is a trite, oversimplified script with a tin ear for human dialogue." [FullText]

"Jan Scruggs' Battle to Heal a Nation's War Wounds," by Michael E. Hill, Washington Post, 05/29/88: Y8. Scruggs on making the movie: "The whole thing was kind of scary . . . . There are a lot of predators out there in California. When you get approached about your book, a lot of times it doesn't come out the way you wrote it." [FullText]

5/30/1988. More to do.

"His Dream was To Heal a Nation with the Vietnam Memorial, but Jan Scruggs's healing isn't over yet," People Weekly, 05/30/88: 85-86. Scruggs: "It took a lot of the bitterness out of the Vietnam debate . . . but I wouldn't say the memorial healed the nation. . . . The wounds caused by the war still require a political healing, a healing on many different levels. Veterans may get solace from the memorial, but they need real programs to help them. . . . There are many problems that haven't been resolved. There's still much work to do." [FullText]

11/6/1988. Monument momentoes are kept.

"Back to the Wall," by Peter Carlson, Washington Post, 11/06/88: W34. About the warehouse where items left at the wall are archived. [FullText]