AN EXHIBITION OF OBJECTS
LEFT AT THE
VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL
A joint exhibition of
the National Museum of American History
Smithsonian Institution
and
National Park Service
Department of the Interior
Since then, visitors from at home and abroad have left more than 25,000 keepsakes at the Memorial, collected daily by National Park Service rangers. Each has its own story, often known only to the donor. This collection of messages and gifts from the heart was created by relatives, former comrades-in-arms, friends, neighbors, and members of civic and fraternal organizations. It expresses the love, grief, and pain they associate with the 58,220 names on the Memorial's 140 black granite panels.
This unsolicited outpouring occurs year round, particularly at Christmas, Memorial Day, July 4th, and Veterans Day. The gifts also commemorate birthdays of dead and missing veterans and other days of personal importance. This selection of remembrances provides us an opportunity to ponder the continuing impact of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the generation that lived through that conflict.
