The winner was young, Asian, female, and still a student. The prize: a commission to build the memorial to service members killed or missing in the Vietnam War. When Maya Lin was chosen, literally no one knew who she was because the competition had been conducted anonymously. Objections to her youth, gender and ethnicity followed, as did opposition to the design itself. Its powerful simplicity won over those who came to the wall to remember one of the 58,272.
A tradition of leaving mementos at the wall began almost immediately, and are archived by the National Park Service.
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