Carried to the Wall: American Memory and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

by Kristin Ann Hass

On May 9, 1990, a bottle of Jack Daniels, a ring with letter, a Purple Heart and Bronze Star, a baseball, a photo album, an ace of spades, and a pie were some of the objects left at the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial. For Kristin Hass, this eclectic sampling represents an attempt by ordinary Americans to come to terms with a multitude of unnamed losses as well as to take part in the ongoing debate of how this war should be remembered. Hass explores the restless memory of the Vietnam War and an American public still grappling with its commemoration. In doing so it considers the ways Americans have struggled to renegotiate the meanings of national identity, patriotism, community, and the place of the soldier, in the aftermath of a war that ruptured the ways in which all of these things have been traditionally defined. Hass contextualizes her study of this phenomenon within the history of American funerary traditions (in particular non-Anglo traditions in which material offerings are common), the history of war memorials, and the changing symbolic meaning of war. Her evocative analysis of the site itself illustrates and enriches her larger theses regarding the creation of public memory and the problem of remembering war and the resulting causalities―in this case not only 58,000 soldiers, but also conceptions of masculinity, patriotism, and working-class pride and idealism.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, College, Read For School

198 pages, Paperback

First published July 8, 1998

About the author

Kristin Ann Hass is a Professor in the Department of American Culture and Faculty Coordinator of the Humanities Collaboratory at the University of Michigan. She lectures, teaches, and writes about nationalism, memory, publics, memorialization, militarization, race, visual culture, and material culture studies.

She has written three books. Blunt Instruments: Recognizing Racist Infrastructure in Memorials, Museums and Patriotic Practices helps readers to identify, classify and name elements of our everyday landscapes and cultural practices that are designed to seem benign or natural but which, in fact, work to maintain powerful structures of inequity. Sacrificing Soldiers on the National Mall is a study of militarism, race, war memorials and U.S. nationalism and Carried to the Wall: American Memory and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is an exploration of public memorial practices, material culture studies and the legacies of the Vietnam War.

Hass is also the editor of Being Human During COVID. Over the course of the pandemic, the questions that occupy the humanities have become shared life-or-death questions about how human societies work and how culture determines our collective fate. The contributors in this collection draw on scholarly expertise and lived experience to try to make sense of the unfamiliar present.

Hass holds a Ph.D. in American studies and has worked in several historical museums, including the National Museum of American History. She was also the co-founder and Associate Director of Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life, a national consortium of educators and activists dedicated to campus-community collaborations.

Reviews

[Laila · Rating 3 out of 5]

This didn’t need to be a whole book. Honestly like the absurd amount of history about funerary traditions that hardly even applied to this memorial takes the focus off of the war and the vets. I’m bored and this shouldn’t be a boring book.

[Jenny.p · Rating 4 out of 5]

A smart and fascinating assessment of the material culture of the Vietnam Memorial. Hass calls attention to the conversation about the issues of conflicted patriotism, the relationship between the individual and the nation, and the fluid nature of memory that can be calculated through the objects left at the Wall. She argues that through the offerings left at the wall, the public creates its own memory of the war and personalizes the memorial to bring honor and identity to the individual soldier that is separate from meaning of the Vietnam War itself. These things--that range from cans of Budweiser to dog tags and metals to high heeled shoes--serve to create a common ground between a deeply polarized society by making the war secondary to the experience of the soldier and the impact of his loss.

Hass's writing style os very engaging and a truly enjoyed reading her book. My only criticism is that she has a tendency to get a bit carried away and over-intellectualize the meaning behind some of the offerings--her interpretations aren't necessarily wrong, but it is doubtful whether they would be seen this way by the leaver.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciated how Hass takes seriously the act of leaving objects at memorials. Unlike other authors, who view this practice as a kind of false or ambivalent use of commodity culture to "participate" in national events, Hass' argues that the desire to leave a gift at the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial reflects a national dialogue about the war. However, she is critical of the POW/MIA objects as commodities and implies that these objects are more problematic than the more individual items left at the wall. She does not doubt the sincerity of the people who buy or leave them.

Hass also covers funerary an monument traditions from the 1860s through early 1990s. This makes the book a nice introduction to memory and memorial study.

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really engaging look at how the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. has become one of the most contested sites in the United States, as different groups and individuals interact with the memorial. Kristin Ann Hass focuses on why people bring objects to the Wall, ways that the Wall has been used to remember and advocate for specific causes, such as the POW/MIA movement, and how the Wall fits into the history of public memory, burial and loss.