Jan Scruggs

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a pair of polished granite walls that has become the capital's most visited monument, has developed hairline cracks and will require extensive future repairs, the project's principal fund-raiser said Tuesday. Jan C. Scruggs, president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, said the organization has launched a direct-mail drive to raise about $1 million to finance the unanticipated repairs and other long-term maintenance needs.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a pair of polished granite walls that has become the capital's most visited monument, has developed hairline cracks and will require extensive future repairs, the project's principal fund-raiser said Tuesday. Jan C. Scruggs, president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, said the organization has launched a direct-mail drive to raise about $1 million to finance the unanticipated repairs and other long-term maintenance needs.

Toward the end of NBC's made-for-TV movie "To Heal a Nation," the story of how the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington came to be built, a woman approaches a veteran tearfully. "I hated the war, and I still hate the war," she says. "But I should never have hated you." The veteran is Jan Scruggs. "To Heal a Nation," which airs Sunday at 9 p.m. on NBC, is his story.

Toward the end of NBC's made-for-TV movie "To Heal a Nation," the story of how the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington came to be built, a woman approaches a veteran tearfully. "I hated the war, and I still hate the war," she says. "But I should never have hated you." The veteran is Jan Scruggs. "To Heal a Nation," which airs Sunday at 9 p.m. on NBC, is his story.

"To Heal a Nation" was pretty hypocritical. In a supposedly apolitical movie--dedicated "to reconciling divergent political views"--why the cracks about Jane Fonda, liberals, etc.? Too bad the writer/director/producer couldn't have been as concerned with "healing and reconciling" as were Jan Scruggs and the others who spearheaded the memorial. David R. Moss, Los Angeles

The names of 96 Vietnam veterans who died outside the war's official combat zone will be inscribed on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington this spring, Jan Scruggs, president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, said. The 96 were not among the original 57,939 names on the memorial because their names were not on the Defense Department's official list of war casualties. They were killed outside the war zone while taking part in missions directly related to combat, Scruggs said.

Author Jan Scruggs, often credited as the moving force behind the construction of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, will unveil a Vietnam Veteran Memorial commemorative medallion set today at the Irvine Marriott. Sales of the commemorative sets are expected to raise $250,000 for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. Proceeds will be used to maintain and add to the memorial in the nation's capital.

Vandals burned a book filled with the 58,191 names of America's dead and missing from the Vietnam War after smashing the display case that held the volume at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, police said Monday. "A rambling note was found near the wall indicating the act might have been some form of protest," said Jan Scruggs, director of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. The destroyed directory was one of three at the site. U.S. Park Police were investigating the incident, a spokesman said.

More than 3,000 Civil War buffs and preservationists braved 100-degree temperatures to protest plans to build a shopping complex next to the Manassas National Battlefield Park in Virginia. "Some people believe the best way to preserve this battleground is to build a 1.2-million-square-foot shopping mall on it," said Rep. Robert J. Mrazek (D-N.Y.), who sponsored legislation that would block the development.

The polished black granite wall of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was defaced by scratches in the shape of a swastika some time in April, the first vandalism of the memorial since it opened in 1982, the National Park Service said. The swastika and other scratches were found on two panels near the middle of the 493-foot memorial, which lists the names of more than 58,000 Americans killed in the Vietnam War and is Washington's most visited memorial.

As a Vietnam veteran, I want to respond to Hearn regarding the Korean veteran as the forgotten veteran. There is no doubt that the Korean vets never got their due. The United States was a different society in the '50s. The Korean vets never organized, never forced our society to know, to remember, the price of participating in a non-war. Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) recognizes and remembers the Korean vet. VVA has endorsed a memorial for the Korean veterans. A lone Vietnam vet, Jan Scruggs, was the force that eventually brought the Vietnam Memorial into being.

A group of Vietnamese officials seeking private donations for orphanages visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Friday, accompanied by a U.S. veteran of the Southeast Asian conflict. The visiting delegation was headed by Vu Khac Nhu, a representative of Hanoi's foreign ministry, and included Nguyen Van Chi, director of social welfare for Ho Chi Minh City.