Honored at Last

A memorial for Viet Nam vets

The ceremony in the sunny Rose Gar den was brief and subdued, but it was one of the most moving--and symbolic--that President Carter has conducted during his term in office. The event reflected the slowly evolving trend toward coming to terms with the Viet Nam War and recognizing the sacrifice of those who served in that corrosive conflict. Carter spoke before signing a bill providing land for a memorial to the Americans who had died in Southeast Asia. Said he: "A long and painful process has brought us to this moment. Our nation was divided by this war. For too long, we tried to put that di vision behind us by forgetting the Viet Nam War. In the process, we ignored those who bravely answered their nation's call. We are ready at last to acknowledge more deeply the debt which we can never fully pay to those who served."

Sitting in the audience of some 100 veterans was Jan Scruggs, 30, a former Army infantryman who organized the campaign to build the memorial. Now a Labor Department specialist in equal-opportunity programs, he saw The Deer Hunter in April 1979 and vividly relived the moment when a U.S. mortar shell accidentally exploded, killing several bud dies. Scruggs decided then and there to honor those who did not come back. He sold some land he owned for $2,500 and started banging on doors in what seemed like a hopeless crusade to raise $1 million.

Working indefatigably, Scruggs gained such allies as Rosalynn Carter and Gerald Ford, and he persuaded Bob Hope to sign a fund-raising letter that went out to a million potential donors. All 100 Senators are listed as sponsors of the bill, a rare unanimity achieved in part by the shrewd tactics of Scruggs; when several Senators hesitated at the last moment, he called their aides to say that every other Senator had signed on. Fearful of being the only one left off the list, the remaining Senators quickly gave their approval. The bill donates two acres of land in Constitution Gardens, just northeast of the Lincoln Memorial, as a site for the monument.

With $275,000 already in hand, Scruggs is determined to raise the rest of the needed funds, now upped to an estimated $2.5 million, and have the monument finished in two years. A design competition will be an nounced soon and a jury of architects and art experts will select the winning en try. Scruggs and his fellow vets insist on just one requirement: the completed memorial must contain 57,000 names--those of every American who died in the war. Jan Scruggs

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