Courtesy of the author The genius of Maya Lin’s design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial -- “The Wall” -- is the visitor’s overwhelming sense of loss. The names of the dead, on 140 black granite panels, appear infinite in number. It has been 32 years since The Wall was dedicated. It has become a place of healing, where Americans could separate the sacrifice of the warriors from what had become America’s most unpopular war. Back then, a young veteran, Jan Scruggs, took $2,000 of his own money and began raising the $8.4 million in private contributions to build what...
