DC - MP Welch

I had never visited the monuments in DC before, so my only impression of the Vietnam Memorial was that from Hass's writing. Therefore, I was underwhelmed by the presence of offerings displayed at the memorial. In my opinion, Hass implied that the workers had to pick up items every hour in order for the piles to not grow too big, but the lady working there informed us that she would leave some items for several days, and only immediately took things like medals. 

This also speaks to how she is tasked with continuously curating the memorial. Since she left the note that described a solider honoring his friend, Dick, we glimpsed a window into this man’s life. However, she may have removed other notes, so we have an altered view of visitors from a few hours earlier. I appreciate and embrace how this makes the site a ‘living memorial,’ but I am skeptical about how much these workers have an influence over the message of the memorial. That said, the Vietnam Memorial was one of my favorites in terms of its function as a memorial.

Interestingly, even after reading all of Hass’ book on the site, I still did not understand the whole memorial and had to ask for clarification from the guide. She informed us that five names were inscribed on every line, even if there was room for more because they acknowledge that soldiers are still being found and added to the site. Additionally, she explained how visitors can identify different days in the memorial based on when the alphabetic list of names starts over. Though this is fairly cryptic and took me a while to discern, I appreciate this nuanced nature of the memorial. Though its message may not be immediately clear, visitors can decipher it with a little thinking and possibly some help from a guide or a pamphlet. In a lot of ways, I see this as the sign of a good memorial - one that is didactic but not over-bearing.