Tribute to Sacrifice

By Hugh Sidey

Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose,

But young men think it is, and we were young.

--A.E. Housman

Lovely irony. Like life. An infantry corporal with nine pieces of shrapnel in his back carried on the fight for three years, pressing, retreating, always recovering and trudging wearily ahead, overcoming protesting generals (Air Force Ace Robinson Risner) and multimillionaires (Ross Perot) and politicians (Congressman Phil Crane) and pundits (Columnist Pat Buchanan) and bureaucrats (Secretary of the Interior James Watt).

Stupidity, narrow-mindedness and indifference were even greater enemies, just as Jan Scruggs found they were in Viet Nam. He was 19 when a rocket grenade exploded behind him in a clearing near Xuan Loc on May 28, 1969. His anguish will heal finally, and maybe the nation's pain be eased too, when ground is broken in a few days on the Washington Mall for the Viet Nam Veterans Memorial. Fifty men who fought in the war will each turn a spade of earth on a spot of hallowed ground 75 yards from Constitution Avenue. The site is by design beneath the gaze of Abraham Lincoln, who held the Union together, and in the morning shadow of the Washington Monument, commemorating the man who guided the Revolution. It is ground where the Viet Nam protesters marched and tented ("It is our turn on the Mall," says Scruggs) and the place where the haunted Richard Nixon prowled in his dawn foray to the camp of the peace marchers. The monument will be just seven blocks from the White House, where John Kennedy guided the first hesitant step into Viet Nam and Lyndon Johnson watched the tense nights away, bound to battlefields and carriers by instant electronic data on boys like Jan Scruggs, whom he never knew but loved in the odd way of war.

This is not a memorial to that war, or any other war. It is to men and women who did something beyond themselves, whatever their reasons. It is a memorial to the young and their nation, to the coming together finally in human tribute. G.I.s and Presidents will walk side by side in memory. Differences will merge. The memorial design is by a Chinese American, Maya Ying Lin, 22. The monument's sponsors are asking that demonstrators for any cause be perpetually banned from the site (as they are in Arlington National Cemetery), so that the tribute to sacrifice will not be corrupted by partisan politics or positions.

The struggle for the memorial imitated life. Virginia's Senator John Warner and Maryland's Senator Charles Mathias heard distant bugle calls and fought all the way for the monument. Illinois' meddlesome Congressman Henry Hyde carelessly spread misinformation and doubt, impugning the sponsors of the idea. Democratic Presidential Candidate George McGovern, who ran in 1972 and was one of the first and most vehement opponents of the war, rallied behind the campaign. Texan Ross Perot intruded with ideas for bigger and grander edifices and statues. With little fanfare, Nancy Reagan penned thank-you notes to hundreds of the donors among the 250,000 who contributed a total of $6 million.

A few days ago, 40 supporters and critics of the memorial gathered to try to break the impasse that threatened the memorial because of such features as the black color of the stone and its position below ground level. After listening for a while, Brigadier General George Price, retired, stood in quiet rage and said, "I am sick and tired of calling black a color of shame." General Price, who lived with and advised the 1st Vietnamese Infantry Division, is black. At the end of five hours and much shouting, General Mike Davison, retired, who led the Cambodian incursion in 1970, proposed a compromise: add the figure of a soldier in front of the long granite walls that will bear the 57,709 names of those who died or are missing and the tribute to all who served. The battle was suddenly over.

Last week the special black stone arrived in New York from India, ready to be shipped to Vermont for cutting and polishing. The early-March groundbreaking ceremony was being planned. Sketches for the sculpture of the soldier were being studied. The figure may turn out to be an infantry corporal: young, burdened, moving on for reasons beyond himself.

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