Exhibition Review

Since its dedication in 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial ("the wall") in Washington, D.C., has been a focal point of public history in the United States. Over time, various groups, feeling that the wall could not contain or represent their stories and memories, have sought to mark its limitations. The memorial has shaped and in turn been shaped by additions such as Frederick Hart's Three Fighting Men statue and the American flag that accompanies it. Recently, Congress has considered another addition, a plaque that would commemorate American veterans who have died since their return from the war. These struggles and their manifestations suggest not simply the ongoing battle for the meaning of the Vietnam War but also the inherent limitations of monuments as sites of representations of history and memory.	1
While the battle over the meaning of the war and the wall go on, the Internet has provided an opportunity for new directions in these dialogues. Since the World Wide Web's explosion in the mid-1990s, Vietnam veterans have made extensive use of the web to connect with former friends, to publish their own stories, and to organize themselves for various causes. The recent development of virtual monuments provides a cyberspace where those various activities can be conducted, along with the practice of memorialization. This review examines two of these "virtual walls" in the context of their relationship to the "real wall" and suggests what those types of memorials might mean in terms of public history and the American war in Vietnam. The Widows of War Living Memorial, another Web-based monument, provides an alternative to the virtual walls.	2
The first Virtual Wall (VW1; [http://www.virtualwall.org]) was put on line in March 1997. Run by a small group of Vietnam veterans, VW1 is a nonprofit endeavor, which even rejects donations, aside from the free space provided by a local Internet service provider. VW1 describes itself as	3
An interactive World Wide Web site that attempts to take portions of the experience and emotions of a visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (the wall) into homes and schools of Internet visitors. The Virtual Wall endeavors to duplicate and convey the dignity and solemnity of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and to maintain the tradition of care and compassion of National Park Service volunteers at the Wall. The Virtual Wall reflects an environment like the wall itself: a memorial created and maintained by volunteers, with no commercials, no noisy or flashy distractions, and no hands held out for donations. . . .