The Vietnam Memorial, Washington DC

By Vicky Tunnicliffe, Chloe Robson, Ruth Given and Ruairaidh Riddell

Maurice Lindsay • Born in Glasgow in 1918.

• He lives in Milton Hill, Dumbarton, Scotland. He was married with one son and three daughters.

• He was educated at Glasgow Academy (now known as the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama) before serving as an officer with the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) during the war.

• He then became a broadcaster in radio then eventually television.

• He was Music Critic of the Glasgow newspaper The Bulletin from 1946 to 1961,in which year he became Programme Controller of Border Television in Carlisle.

• In 1967 he was appointed the first Director of the Scottish Civic Trust.

• His first twelve books of verse are now represented by his Collected Poems.

Vietnam War• The Vietnam War was the longest

military conflict in U.S. history. The hostilities in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia claimed the lives of more than 58,000 Americans. Another 304,000 were wounded.• Wall of Honour: Their names are

engraved on the black granite of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in

Washington, D.C.• The Vietnam War was the longest and

most unpopular war in which Americans ever fought. And there is no reckoning the cost. The toll in suffering, sorrow, in rancorous national turmoil can never be tabulated. No one wants ever to see America so divided again. And for many of the more than two million American veterans of the war, the wounds of Vietnam will never heal.

• The financial cost to the United States comes to something over $150 billion dollars.

The Vietnam Memorial, Washington DC

Marshalled platoons of tourists troop to see in gleaming mindless glory, state-conceived,

this gestured ceremonial public loss: While we mourn corporate number, not the names,while peasants learn to live with what they must, Where some stand numbly, eyes only for

one.here, downed as if by flak, a grounded V Maurice Lindsay

(Cameronians)lies sunk in its uncastellated fosse, (1918-?)staring its lists of bleak disremembered trust.

When menace leans beyond its emphasis find leaders borrow lives to flesh their need upholding the abstraction of a cause,one side or the other comes to this.The future cocks an ear that both must heedIf they would win posterity’s applause,

Claim cynics. But we know, less well-deceived,the just can’t always mollify their aims.So the stone mourns the father, husband, son

Understanding the poem

• Marshalled platoons of tourists troop to see this gestured ceremonial public loss:= There are so many tourists, like an army they wander in groups to see the memorial and what people have lost.

• while peasants learn to live with what they must,= No matter what they have lost they have to get on with their lives.

• here, downed as if by flak, a grounded V lies sunk in its uncastellated fosse,= It has been there so long it’s almost like it has always been there, part of the earth.

• staring its lists of bleak disremembered trust.= Unpleasant, emptiness left after the men’s trust was broken and vaguely remembered.

• When menace leans beyond its emphasis and leaders borrow lives to flesh their need upholding the abstraction of a cause,= Trouble is worse than what was thought to be the worst. Leaders send men to fight, put their lives on the line, just to get what they want. Without thinking about the consequences.

• one side or the other comes to this.= Either one side or the other is killed.

• The future cocks an ear that both must heedIf they would win posterity’s applause,=People of the future will see the damage that has been done.

• Claim cynics. But we know, less well – deceived,= It’s nonsense and we all know that.

• the just can’t always mollify their aims.= What they want, they can’t always get. Everything can’t be all good like how you want it to be.

• So the stone mourns the father, husband, son in gleaming mindless glory, state-conceived,= They aren’t upset by the lives lost, they don’t care.

• While we mourn corporate number, not the names,= There are so many lives lost,the names don’t matter but the numbers do.

• Where some stand numbly, eyes only for one. = They care only for the one they lost.