Cutting sharply into the green lawn of the Mall, the small and simple Vietnam Veterans Memorial serves as a somber and powerful reminder of the nearly 60,000 US soldiers who died in Vietnam. The pathway that slopes down from the grass forms a gash in the earth, its increasing depth symbolizing the increasing involvement of US forces in the war. Alongside, a black marble wall is carved with the names of every soldier who died, in chronological order from 1959 to 1975.
The memorial was designed by Maya Lin, a 21-year-old architecture student. When it was first erected in 1982, there was some outcry from veterans' groups about its anti-war connotations. In 1984, to achieve a balance, a more traditional statue of three heroic soldiers was placed nearby, under a floodlit American flag. More lobbying led to the establishment in 1993 of the Vietnam Women's Memorial , which stands in a grove of trees at the east end of the main site; it honors the 11,000 American women who served in the conflict.
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