Vietnamese writer and thinker Viet Thanh Nguyen (who we quote for this website’s tagline, “All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory.”) has created, along with his students, a new website of peoples’ memories of the war.
How do nations remember wars?
Usually nations remember their own soldiers and citizens, and usually nations will build memorials to those who have died fighting their wars. But memorials help us to forget as much as they help us to remember. An Other War Memorial questions why nations should remember only their own, and why soldiers are the ones recalled in memorials. The war commemorated here is what some call the Vietnam War and what some call the American War. The people commemorated here are both the living and the dead, soldiers and civilians. Visitors can begin by clicking on a portrait to see the profile of someone who died in the war, survived the war, witnessed the war, or protested against it.
