WASHINGTON DC- Who knew it wasn’t just the Vietnam War veterans who had misgivings about Maya Lin’s design for a memorial? Fair enough it doesn’t celebrate the achievements of our armies. This peripheral statue offers the more conventional bronze tribute. It depicts as addendum, three survivors emerging from the woods, disheveled and still brandishing assault rifles. They appear to regard the wall and its visitors with wariness. I recognize the faces now, they are the chicken hawks who didn’t go, but still want to wage war, and had to figure out how to get America over that wall.
Nearby, the WWII memorial celebrates the victors more than it commemorates the dead, it’s fashioned like a stone coliseum, as might have been fashioned by the world champion rooster after an undefeated string of cockfights.