On November 13, 1982, America’s most cherished memorial was dedicated and was noted on the official registrar of National Historic Places.  Less than four years earlier, the design of the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial was only a prototype in the head of Maya Lin, a Vietnamese refugee of the war.  Her idea ultimately won the national competition that had been established to determine the building of the monument.  The Vietnam War had struck close to home in the hearts of Americans, thus, it was only right that an ordinary member of the general populous be able to come up with a design.  Four main points had to be followed in order to be eligible as the featured design. The wall had to:

1. be reflective and contemplative in character;

2. harmonize with its surroundings;

3. contain the names of those who had died in the conflict or who were still missing;

4. make no political statement about the war.

(source: http://thewall-usa.com/information.asp)

Lin’s design was the one deemed to fit the criteria most completely.  The end result, (for the most part), has been quite positive, and the Veteran’s Memorial remains a favorite in the hearts of many Americans.  More than anything, it does not make much of any statement about the war.  Visiting the memorial, one is swept up with emotion in the quiet storm of solemn silence.  It truly is a humbling experience to stand before the ‘black wall.’  As it was intended, it serves as a steadfast reminder of the 56,000 GIs who died in Vietnam.  It is literally a wall of grief. (source:http://peaceaware.com/documents/Sanctions%20Against%20Geneva%20Convention.htm).

This webpage has been modeled in the black and white contrast that the memorial portrays.  It serves as a reminder for those who tragically lost their lives in the conflict.  However, this webpage’s true purpose is to expose the brutality, injustice and mistakes of the Vietnam War, and the legacy it left behind for future American wars.  Unlike the previous wars fought by Americans, the Vietnam War was the first where the number of civilian casualties greatly outweighed that of GI casualties – 340,000 civilian casualties blamable on the US.  Furthermore, my data shows that there can be no denying that sense the Vietnam conflict, American wars (and certainly wars fought by many other nations) have increasingly featured more civilian deaths.  Additionally, my home page features three real-life incidences of unspeakable abuse done to innocent Vietnamese people by American soldiers with little or no consequence.  This is more for effect and to draw the audience in than anything else, but it nevertheless adds value to the page.  In war sometimes bad things happen, however, the sheer violence of the Vietnam conflict, coupled with the fact that many people believe we should never have been over there in the first place, leaves the Vietnam War as a huge blight in America’s history.

Just as disturbing as our presence was in Vietnam during the main conflict, so too was our vacancy after it ended.  For instance, after dumping 20,000,000 gallons of the chemical Agent Orange over the jungles and cities of Vietnam, for years, the American government denied the effects it was having on the land and its people.  Initially, even American vets complaining of complications and defects caused by the toxin were turned away.  My project outlines the negative impact done to Vietnam and its people by the implementation of Agent Orange.  This attitude towards the use of Agent Orange generally reflects the attitude of the American government toward the entirety of the war: little to zero accountability for their mistakes during the conflict. (source:  Pellow, David N. Resisting Global Toxics: Transnational Movements for Environmental Justice, MIT Press, 2007, p. 159).

Ultimately, this webpage serves to produce the truth about the unjust nature of the conflict; the page’s graphic content is necessary in order to illustrate the ‘unnecessary.’  Walking past all those names on the wall at the memorial I can only wonder how much bigger it would be had the design included names of all the innocents who lost their lives.  America is a great nation, and we certainly lead the way in terms of democracy and righteousness, but the Vietnam War is a conflict we failed to participate in with a diligent sense of morality.

The overall design and navigational functions of my webpage are rather simple.  I made it this way, along with mostly black and white colors to emulate the style of the Vietnam Memorial.  Like the memorial, my intention with the page’s structure is to set a solemn mood for the viewer.  For this reason also, most of my images are in black and white.  I included two videos in my media section that do quite a nice job in relaying the brutality and lasting impact of the Vietnam War (the hip-hop video might be hard to listen to, but it is a real treasure).  I don’t plan to maintain my website very much after the class is over, so I am not overly concerned with security threats, however, if it does continue to stay up I will have to go over any copyright issues I may have.

Link to project: http://cjohn9.wix.com/vietnam

3 Slide Showdown – Origins of the Vietnam Memorial

Here is a map I am using for my webpage.  It highlights several locations of massacres that occurred during the Vietnam War.

Blog #05

Personally, I would have to say that my own security practices on the internet are quite lacking.  For one, I use only about two or three different passwords for all of my secure sites, which could lead to a mass invasion of personal information.  In addition, I tend not to log out of social media websites like Facebook and Youtube for ease of future access.  Furthermore, I don’t misrepresent myself on the internet much.  For instance, some of my friends on Facebook don’t use their real names, so employers can’t find them.  However, this makes it difficult for your actual friends to find you at times.  Therefore, if one refrains from posting questionable material about oneself on the internet, one does not have to assume an alias.  However, I do assume an alias on my Youtube account, as I am a musician and I simply use my musical alias.  In short, I am not particularly worried about someone trying to steal my identity or hack into my personal accounts.  Even though I have only a few passwords for all my sites, they consist of capitals and letters, which would make it difficult for a hacker without external software to penetrate my security.  Overall, I could definitely do better in securing personal information on the internet, and I have started to log out of my social media accounts when they are not being used.  However, my passwords will more than likely not change.

Blog #03

Information on the Vietnam Website seems pretty substantial and looks to be fairly accurate.  It has sixteen listed sources, along with numerous other sources cited for further reading.  There is a good supplement of pictures with information that helps the reader digest the material.  I would have liked more information in the section about controversies, but as most people seem to like the wall, the fact that the controversy section is slightly scarce is not surprising.  Overall, I would conclude that the wikipedia page about the Veteran’s Memorial is well done.  For my Wikipedia edit, I changed Maya Lin’s age from 21 to 20, in respect to when she entered her design into the national contest.

The history of the web is an astonishingly large topic. The readings really opened my eyes to how quickly with which the ease of access to information has risen due to the internet. I thought it was particularly fascinating how the author likened the history web in 1995 to ‘a walking city’ only within a few short years to become a ‘sprawling megapolis.’ In harmony with the modern day urbanization, the internet has grown into a vast entity of information in a small space. Because of the speed in which the internet has progressed, I find it difficult to understand sometimes that the web is VERY new (in some way younger than I am). Because of this explosion of information now easily accessible on a large scale, the line between what is true and what is not true has been blurred. To help clear the blur and because researching the internet has become something of a daunting task, many scholarly indexes of relevant information have been created, in order to make research easier. In addition, the freedom of the internet and resulting digitalization has downplayed capitalist endeavors in some respects, causing some databases of information to exist only for paying subscribers. Thus, the ‘rich get richer’ in mind as well as financially.

For a possible topic for my project I have decided to research the effect of the Vietnam War and Veteran memorial on music throughout the last few decades. A possible research question pertaining to this topic could be: “How was the Vietnam War received in different genres of music and what role does music play at the Vietnam Memorial?” The question is rough right now, and is split into two parts. As I stated in my first blog, I enjoy music and finding a connection between music and the war/memorial could potentially inspire a compelling final project.

(I was not in class on Tuesday, so I did not complete Part 1 of the blog)
For my class project I would like to go to the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial. There are several reasons for this (one of which is ease of transportation), but I am particular interested in how musicians view the wall. The Vietnam War has been a target of criticism across many genres of music throughout the last few decade. I am a lover of music and I think being able to prove a historical question pertaining to how music was affected by the Vietnam War. Another interesting topic would be to research how the violence of the war ultimately affected the memorial’s construction. The memorial has been criticized as being too somber and impersonal. Senator James Webb, an initial supporter of the memorial’s construction changed his mind after the design was drawn; reported saying: “I never in my wildest dreams imagined such a nihilistic slab of stone.” Although it tends to be praised by most visitors, it would be interesting to look into the side of those who are unhappy with the final product of the Vietnam Memorial. One last possible research topic could be the emotions of visiting veterans in pictures. The image of the Vietnam Vet weeping solemnly to himself in front the name of a fallen comrade is extremely iconic.

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