ABSTRACT
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is almost austere in its simplicity. Two polished walls stretch toward the Washington Monument on the east and the Lincoln Memorial on the west, linking America's past with the present. Unlike the other memorials, one can't see the Wall from the car. At its outer edges, the Wall is less than a foot high, hardly appropriate for a national monument. Yet at the apex where the two walls meet, the memorial rises toward the sky, engulfing us with its height. At its center the Wall begins to make sense. The names, which began on a single line, have multiplied to the point where they surround us. All of a sudden the implication is clear: the Wall represents what might have been. Looking at the Wall, we can see the world reflected: sun, moon, clouds, the trees in the distance, the people standing next to us.
