The National Vietnam Veterans Memorial (NVVM), located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., has three components: a 500-foot long black granite wall of names designed by Maya Lin and dedicated in 1982; a bronze sculpture of three Vietnam-era soldiers by Frederick Hart, known as The Three Servicemen, dedicated in 1984; and a bronze sculpture of three Vietnam-era servicewomen attending to a wounded male GI, by Glenna Goodacre, known as the Vietnam Women's Memorial and dedicated in 1993. Lin's wall is the most important work of commemorative public art in America in the second half of the twentieth century.

The NVVM was the brainchild of Jan Scruggs, a Vietnam veteran who, after seeing The Deer Hunter, a popular Hollywood film about the plight of Vietnam vets, founded the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund in 1979. This organization was devoted solely to obtaining a prominent federal site for a...