Vietnam Veterans Memorial

A nationwide competition held in late 1980 and early 1981 to design the new memorial attracted 1,421 entries. Maya Ying Lin, a 21-year-old Yale student, won the contest with her vision of polished black granite walls inscribed with the names of dead and missing Americans who served in Vietnam. Dedicated in November 1982, the angular wall contains 58,202 names listed in chronological order according to the date of casualty and followed or preceded (east wall, west wall respectively) by either a cross or a diamond. Individuals with diamonds have been confirmed dead, while those with crosses were either missing or prisoners at the end of the war and remain unaccounted for. If a missing person returns alive, the cross is surrounded by a circle. If only the remains of a missing person are returned or accounted for, the cross is superimposed by a diamond.

Related site: National Park Service: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

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