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Friday, April 5, 2013

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial

The memorial was purposely constructed to honor members of the US Armed Forces who served in the Vietnam War. Currently, it consists of 3 parts, namely; - The Three Soldiers/Servicemen built with  life-size bronze statues, The Vietnam Women's Memorial and The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall which is the most commonly popular location visited by at least 3 million visitors annually.

The Vietnam Women's Memorial which is also nearby the 3 statues is a small memorial with sculptures of 2 women in uniform tending to a wounded male soldier while another sculpture of a woman is kneeling close to it.

The memorial black granite wall has a list of inscriptions of the chronological names of at least 58,272 Americans that were killed and went missing in action during the war. The stone used for the wall was bought from India which was chosen due to its reflective quality, so that when you look upon the wall, your reflection can be seen simultaneously with the engraved names, which is meant to bring the past and present together symbolically.

Me and my other me ;)
The strategical location of the wall is that one wall is pointing towards Washington Monument and the other one leads in the direction towards the Lincoln Memorial, which meets an angle of 125 degrees 12:
Along the base of this wall is a pathway that serves as walking path for visitors while reading and/or locating names, or just pray for them.