The Private Sector Does It Better: Vietnam Memorial Edition
Nicolas Loris /
Last week repairs on the Vietnam Memorial commenced to replace the worn, yellow grass with fresh sod, improve the irrigation system and restore the bronze fixtures around the memorial – including the flagpole, a statue of three soldiers and the base of the directories to help visitors find names on the wall. Particularly worth noting is how it’s being funded: not by the taxpayer but by a private memorial fund. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund took over the duties from the National Park Service “because of scarce funding from the federal government”, and is attempting to raise more than $1 million, half of which would go to creating a reserve to replace parts of the wall if and when needed.
James Cummings, a member of the memorial’s original architecture team said, “No one expected the memorial itself would have such an impact with the culture. There’s a plan now to take care of it.”
Interestingly, it was the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund who built the wall in 1982. Boasting that it was done with no government funding, VVMF “built a Wall of honor dedicated not only to those who died, but to all who served in this war. At long last, those veterans who had been ignored were embraced, those embarrassed by their service could be proud, those neglected could be tended.”