The Occasional Observer

Duncan Maxwell Anderson wrote an interesting piece at The American Thinker that focuses on the scourge of anti-American equivocation, and what's worse, down right ingratitude towards those who gave their lives. Here's a chunk of it:

The Vietnam Veterans' Memorial.

Designed by college student Maya Lin, it was unveiled in Washington, D.C., on Veterans' Day 25 years ago. It's a black granite thingy - a long, plain wall that lines a big hole dug 10 feet into the ground. It lists the names of the war's 58,000 fallen Americans and . . . nothing else.

In her first proposal to build the memorial, Lin explained its purpose: "We, the living, are brought to a concrete realization of these deaths." That's it. Not to honor what they did. Just a reminder that they're dead. Thanks.

The Flight 93 National Memorial.

The National Park Service will erect the "Bowl of Embrace" in Somerset County, Pa., where United Flight 93 crashed to earth on 9/11. For their heroism in overpowering four Islamic hijackers and foiling their attempt to destroy the White House or the Capitol, the passengers will be honored with . . . an empty field.

Like the Vietnam memorial, the monument itself has no inscription honoring anyone's actions - just 1970s-style wind chimes and the names of dead people inscribed on glass cubes.

The National 9/11 Memorial.

On the spot where the World Trade Center stood, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.'s anointed designer, Michael Arad, decrees that there be . . . an American eagle? A statue of the three firemen raising the American flag over the rubble? Heck, no. Just two huge, square, "reflecting" pools. Maybe you can gaze at your navel through them.

In a complex slated to cost $1 billion, this urban swamp is called "Reflecting Absence." Absence, indeed. What these modern war memorials have in common with each other is nothing: They portray nothingness. They have no people in them, never mind men carrying guns or swords, statues of Winged Victory or even doves of peace. Just death and names - grief without glory.

Oddly enough, for structures that are purposely barren,
the promotional literature about all of them says their purpose involves
"healing." By "healing," I infer they must mean "sitting in the corner, licking
your wounds and whining pitifully."