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Heroines of Compassion and National Consolers: The Vietnam Women's Memorial Foundation and the Politics of Memory
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 November 2021
Abstract
The article explores the politics of memory surrounding the Vietnam Women's Memorial Foundation (VWMF) – the grassroots organization that led the campaign to establish the Vietnam Women's Memorial in Washington, DC. Drawing on archival material, public statements, and interviews with members of the group, it demonstrates that the organization used the ambivalences and anxieties surrounding the Vietnam War's remembrance to argue for the commemoration of women who served during the war. The VWMF portrayed those women as heroines of compassion – similar to men in terms of courage and selflessness, but different because of their benignity and benevolence. However, the VWMF's depiction of women's compassion was informed by national loyalties and sentiments; it acknowledged Vietnamese civilians only as objects of American goodwill, and failed to engage with ethical questions concerning American intervention in Vietnam. By drawing attention to women's dedication and compassion, the organization carried out a symbolic rehabilitation of American actions in Vietnam. It contributed to solidifying the dominant mode of representing the Vietnam War through the lens of American military sacrifice and fostered an understanding of the Vietnam War as an American national event.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press in association with the British Association for American Studies
References
1 Diane Carlson Evans, “Vietnam Women's Memorial Dedication Speech,” 11 Nov. 1993, 5, the Vietnam Women's Memorial Foundation's archive (hereafter VWMF archive). When I was conducting my research in 2012 and 2013, the archival documents were stored at Evans's house in Helena, MT and the house of Cindy Gurney (the VWMF's executive director) in Halfmoon, NY. In 2017 they were transferred to the Library of Congress. The organization changed its name from Vietnam Women's Memorial Project (VWMP) to Vietnam Women's Memorial Foundation (VWMF) in 2002 to reflect the change in its mission after the memorial's dedication. I use both of the organization's names depending on the period of time to which I refer.
2 Evans was not exactly right. At the time of the VWM's dedication there were at least two memorials in Washington, DC commemorating women's participation in wars: the Civil War Nurses Memorial, also known as the Nuns of the Battlefield Memorial (1924), located next to the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle, and a statue of Jane A. Delano and the nurses who died in service in World War I, also known as the Spirit of Nursing (1933), which stands in the garden at the American Red Cross National Headquarters. The VWM was the first monument to women's war service dedicated in Washington after a commemorative break which lasted more than half a century.
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13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
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16 Ibid., 93.
17 Ibid., 119.
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21 Ibid., 113.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid., 122.
24 Ibid., 123–24.
25 Ibid., 26–29.
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27 Ibid., 22–26.
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29 Dixon Vuic, 38.
30 Ibid., 146–47.
31 Holm, Women in the Military, 206.
32 The Vietnam Women's Memorial Foundation, at www.vietnamwomensmemorial.org/history.php.
33 Ibid.
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35 Stur, 108.
36 Holm, 242.
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51 Ibid.
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53 Tom Carhart quoted in Hagopian, 104.
54 Doubek, 234.
55 Frederick Hart quoted in Karal Ann Marling and Robert Silberman, “The Statue Near the Wall: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Art of Remembering,” Smithsonian Studies in American Art, 1 (Spring 1987), 4–29, 17.
56 Ibid.
57 Hagopian, 270.
58 Ibid., 271.
59 Ibid.
60 Frederick Hart quoted in Marling and Silberman, 18.
61 Diane Carlson Evans, “Building the Vietnam Women's Memorial,” speech delivered at Bronson Missouri Wolfhound Reunion, 28 June 2010, 9, VWMF archive.
62 Ibid.
63 The VWMP Newsletter, 3rd Quarter 1985, 1, VWMF archive.
64 Diane Carlson Evans, interview by the author, 27 Oct. 2012, Helena, MT.
65 Ibid.
66 Public Law 100–660, 100th Congress, at https://uscode.house.gov/statutes/pl/100/660.pdf.
67 The VWMP, “Invisible Veterans,” news release (no date), 2, VWMF archive.
68 The VWMP, “Vietnam Women's Memorial Project Announces Finalists for Vietnam Women's Memorial in Washington DC,” 11 Nov. 1990, 2, VWMF archive.
69 The VWMP, “Letter to the Editor” (Mark Perry), 5 Feb. 1987, VWMF archive.
70 The VWMP, “Vietnam Women's Memorial Project Announces Finalists for Vietnam Women's Memorial in Washington DC,” 1.
71 Nguyen notes that in the US, “Vietnam War” is commonly abbreviated to “Vietnam” and there is a shared cultural understanding that “Vietnam” means the war, not the country. Nguyen, Nothing Ever Dies, 5.
72 The VWMP, “Commission of Fine Arts Approves Vietnam Women's Memorial Project's Memorial Design,” 19 Sept. 1991, VWMF archive.
73 Art Encyclopedia, “Pietà,” at www.visual-arts-cork.com/history-of-art/pieta.htm.
74 Christina Simko, The Politics of Consolation: Memory and the Meaning of September 11 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).
75 Ibid.
76 Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, delivered at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on 19 Nov. 1863, at www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm.
77 Deborah L. Madsen Allegory in America: From Puritanism to Postmodernism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996).
78 Ibid., 2.
79 Oliver, Kendrick, “Atrocity, Authenticity and American Exceptionalism: (Ir)rationalizing the Massacre at My Lai,” Journal of American Studies, 37, 2 (2003), 247–68, 258CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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81 The VWMP, donation request letter (no date), 1, VWMF archive.
82 Ibid.
83 Ibid.
84 Diane Carlson Evans, “Vietnam Women's Memorial Project,” 1, VWMF archive.
85 Diane Carlson Evans, “Women Veterans: Our Silent Sisters,” speech delivered at the meeting of the Association of the United States Army in Milwaukee, WI, 28 Sept. 1984, 1, VWMF archive.
86 Amelia Jane Carson, biographical statement (no date), 1, VWMF archive.
87 Evans, interview by the author, 27 Oct. 2012.
88 Ibid.
89 Frederick Hart quoted in transcript of the Meeting of the Commission of Fine Arts, 22 Oct. 1987, 82.
90 Lawrence M. Baskir and William A. Strauss, Chance and Circumstance: The Draft, the War, and the Vietnam Generation (New York: Random House, 1978), 6.
91 Ibid., 10.
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100 Diane Carlson Evans, speech delivered at the VVM, 28 May 1990, 4.
101 Diane Carlson Evans, “Vietnam Women's Memorial Project,” 2.
102 The VWMP, “Key Points to Convey to Your Audience” (no date), 1, VWMF archive.
103 Norman, 36–37.
104 Donna-Marie Boulay quoted in the document “Congressional Committee Washington DC, Testimony, May 20th, 1984,” 2, VWMF archive.
105 Ibid.
106 Evans, “Building the Vietnam Women's Memorial,” 23.
107 Donna-Marie Boulay quoted in “Congressional Committee Washington DC, Testimony,” 2.
108 Evans, “Women Veterans,” 1.
109 Evans, “Building the Vietnam Women's Memorial,” 3.
110 Dixon Vuic, Officer, Nurse, Woman, 123–35.
111 Tronto, Joan C., Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care (New York and London: Routledge, 1993), 15Google Scholar.
112 Glenna Goodacre quoted in transcript of the Meeting of the Commission of Fine Arts, 19 Sept. 1991, 12, VWMF archive.
113 Evans, interview by the author, 27 Oct. 2012.
114 Ibid.
115 VWMP, Celebration of Patriotism and Courage: Dedication of the Vietnam Women's Memorial, November 10–12, 1993, VWMF archive.
116 Ibid., 64.
117 Mary V. Stremlow, “Women Marines in Vietnam,” in VWMP, Celebration of Patriotism and Courage, 64–66, 65–66.
118 Carson, biographical statement, 2.
119 Ibid.
120 VWMP, “Celebration of Patriotism and Courage,” 2.
121 Ibid.
122 Ibid.
123 Ibid., 71.
124 Stur, Beyond Combat.
125 Ibid., 17–63.
126 Ibid.
127 “Nearly One Hundred Confederate Monuments Removed in 2020, Report Says; More than Seven Hundred Remain,” National Public Radio, at www.npr.org/2021/02/23/970610428/nearly-100-confederate-monuments-removed-in-2020-report-says-more-than-700-remai.
128 “Women Are Making Up More of the Military, but Are More Likely to Leave the Military Early, New Report Says,” Stars and Stripes, at www.stripes.com/news/us/women-are-making-up-more-of-the-military-but-are-more-likely-to-leave-early-new-report-says-1.630516 and Women in the Army, History, at https://www.army.mil/women/history.