Vietnam Veterans Memorial Facts

Vietnam Veterans Memorial Facts

• Twenty one year old Maya Lin designed the memorial after winning a national design contest. She was a Harvard undergraduate at the time.
• Work began on March 11, 1982 after the design received Federal approval.
• The wall is made of 2 black granite stones that are each 246.75 feet long.
• Corporations, foundations, service organizations and over 275,000 individuals contributed $9mil to the project. No federal funds were used.
• There are over 58,300 names on the wall.
• There are 3 sets of fathers and sons.
• 39,996 were 22 or younger.
• 8,283 were 19 or younger.
• The largest age group is 18 with 33,103 names on the wall.
• 12 on the wall were 17 years old, 6 were 16 years old and 1 was 15 years old.
• 997 were killed on their first day in country and 1448 died on their last day.
• There are 31 sets of brothers on the wall.
• There are 8 women listed on the wall.
• The most deaths for a single day was 245 on January 31, 1968.