The Vietnam War was never without controversy. Consider the Peace Marches, the billboards (“War is Over. If you want it…”), “all we are saying is give peace a chance” as well as the draft-dodgers who fled to Canada escaping the “useless” war. My own father was one of those who came to Canada. He settled in Montreal right in the rush of Expo ’67. It was certainly a far cry from the heated jungles where his countrymen were fighting. But for what purpose, really?

Standing in a green, lush park and staring up at the expanse of black granite stretching, towering and immense in front of me, I could not help the bewilderment that overwhelmed me as I read the first name. Why? It started out as less than a human massacre. Five names, six names…the memorial expands as the death count rises. They wanted to quell the communists of North Vietnam. Fifteen, sixteen…the black slab rises ominously. I trace the names carved in the stone, chronologically, simply and impersonally. It’s so scientific it hurts. The other memorials are gentler somehow. They are green and floral, sombre and sad. Vietnam’s tribute is new, modern, dark and painful. The escalation of losses is the killer. The entire effectiveness is based on the power of the death count. The structure seems to swell, reaching its most infamous point where the two walls meet. This joining point connects the two tallest walls marking the bloodiest period of the Vietnam War. Finally, the black marble wave sinks meekly down to the war’s last victim and ground level.

The Vietnam War Memorial provokes a similar reaction to the War it honours: some like it… many do not. Despite its lack of aesthetic charm, I find it very effective and powerful. To those who consider it a horror, ponder this: if the Vietnam War Memorial is, what some have called, “a black scar in the park”; then the Vietnam War is a black scar in the history of the United States of America.