Offerings at the Wall: Artifacts from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Collection - Softcover

Allen, Thomas B.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1570361746 ISBN 13: 9781570361746

Publisher: Turner Pub, 1995

Synopsis

Highlighting a selection of the thousands of objects left by visitors at the Vietnam Memorial each year, a moving book pays tribute to the Wall that is visited by millions every year and to those immortalized by it. Simultaneous.

About this title

From Booklist:

The first offering to the Wall, a Purple Heart thrown into the monument's cement as it was being poured, presaged the medals, insignia, MIA bracelets, bullet casings, photographs, and flags from coffins that survivors have left at the Vietnam monument. Each night the items are warehoused and cataloged; this album portrays a sample of the 30,000 objects commended to the dead thus far. Photographed against stark white backdrops, the artifacts vary in overt meaning: booze or money settles debts; a letter reaches out to the silence (sealed letters are never opened); mementos scrawled with signatures and explanations maintain a tangible link with the dead. What unites the variety is the private message delivered in this public space, a message palpable merely in outline to strangers not privy to the individual pain. In spite of that ambiguity, viewing these photos conveys the emotional impact of the memorial that only a personal visit to the site can exceed. With an appendix of all 58,196 names on the Wall, this book is quite a powerful memorial on its own. Gilbert Taylor

From Library Journal:

Photos of some of the 35,000 offerings left at the Vietnam Wall since 1982.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Turner Pub
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 1570361746
• ISBN 13: 9781570361746
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288