The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall was designed by 21 year old Yale Architectural student Maya Ying Lin. Maya was the winner of the 1981 design competition of over 1,400 entries. Her winning design was quite controversial for many years, but has since become the most visited in all of Washington DC. The wall contains 58,209 names, including 1,300 designated as MIA's. Each leg is 247 feet long, and slopes to a height at the vertex of over 10 feet.
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The wall consists of 70 separate panels on each of the two legs. Each panel contain anywhere from 1 to 137 lines of names. The black marble was quarried in Bangalore, India, then cut and fabricated in Barre, Vermont. I have never visited a memorial that has moved me as this simple wall had. I think it would be very difficult for anyone to walk along the memorial and not have it stir their emotions in some fashion. It was quite a memorable experience.
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