Stories

Jan Scruggs

Photo: © 2012, Matt McClain / For the Washington Post

Jan Scruggs retired from VVMF in June 2015.

In 1979, Jan Scruggs conceived the idea of building the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., as a tribute to all who served during one of the longest wars in American history. Today, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is among the most visited memorials in the nation’s capital.

Scruggs was a wounded and decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, having served in the 199th Light Infantry Brigade of the U.S. Army. He felt a memorial would serve as a healing device for a different kind of wound—that inflicted on our national psyche by the long and controversial Asian war.

Scruggs launched the effort with $2,800 of his own money and gradually gained the support of other Vietnam veterans in persuading Congress to provide a prominent location on federal government property somewhere in Washington, D.C. After a difficult struggle, Congress responded, and the site chosen was on the National Mall near the Lincoln Memorial.

As president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund Inc., the nonprofit organization created to build and maintain the Memorial, Scruggs headed up the effort that raised $8.4 million and saw the Memorial completed in just two years. It was dedicated on November 13, 1982, during a week-long national salute to Vietnam veterans in the nation’s capital.

After the completion of the Memorial, Scruggs, along with author Joel L. Swerdlow, put to paper To Heal a Nation—the moving story of Scruggs’ efforts to build The Wall. In May 1988, it became an “NBC Movie of the Week.”

He has appeared on 60 Minutes, Nightline, Good Morning America and The Today Show as well as C-SPAN, CNN and FOX. He has written opinion articles for The Washington PostUSA TodayThe New York Times,The Washington Times and other national and regional publications. A national speaker and author, Scruggs has written articles on a wide range of topics, including the Civil War and the battle of Gettysburg.

Scruggs is a native of Washington, D.C, and grew up in Bowie, Md.  He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from American University in Washington, D.C., and his law degree from the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

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History of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

The Inspiration

On January 21, 1970, Jan Scruggs was having his morning cup of coffee, but he was far from his kitchen table at home. He was in Vietnam, serving in the 199th Light Infantry Brigade.

In the nine months since he’d been in-country, Scruggs had already seen a lot of action and had been wounded in a battle near Xuan Loc. He had spent three months recovering in a hospital before being sent back to fight with rocket-propelled grenade fragments permanently embedded in his body.

On that January day, “There was a big explosion,” Scruggs recalled. “I ran over to see a truck on fire and a dozen of my friends dying.” They had been unloading an ammunition truck when the explosion occurred. Scruggs would never forget the awful scene. He would never forget those friends.

In fact, he would spend a lifetime trying to honor their memory.

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History of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

The Vision

Scruggs was raised in a rural Maryland town between Baltimore and Washington, D.C.  His mother was a waitress; his father a milkman. “We’re all the result of our upbringing. My background was relatively modest,” he said. “But I was always impressed with the example my parents set.”

When the 18-year-old Scruggs volunteered to enlist in the Army in 1968, debate surrounding Vietnam was escalating.  The war’s length and the growing number of casualties were fueling tensions. Within months after he recovered from his wounds and returned to his unit, the American public was learning the details of the events at My Lai. By the time he returned home, three months after the explosion, the country was even further divided.

Over the next few years, as the war came to a close and more and more troops returned home, the media began to paint a picture of the stereotypical Vietnam veteran: drug addicted, bitter, discontented, and unable to adjust to life back home. Like all stereotypes, this one was unfair.

The truth was, veterans were no more likely to be addicted to drugs than those who did not serve. And if they were bitter, who could blame them? When they returned home from serving their country, there was no national show of gratitude. They were either ignored or shouted at and called vicious names. Veterans frequently found themselves denying their time in Vietnam, never mentioning their service to new friends and acquaintances for fear of the reactions it might elicit.

By June 1977, Scruggs was attending graduate school at American University in Washington, D.C. and had embarked on a research study exploring the social and psychological consequences of Vietnam military duties. He found that returning veterans were finding it hard to trust people. They were feeling alienated from the nation’s leaders, and they had low self-esteem. He also found that those veterans whose units experienced high casualty rates were experiencing higher divorce rates and a greater frequency of combat-related dreams.  Using his findings, he testified at the Senate hearing on the Veteran’s Health Care Amendments Act of 1977, with the hope that he could help veterans gain access to the services and support they needed.

He also wanted to find a way to help them heal and suggested that the country build a national memorial as a symbol that the country cared about them.

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History of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Getting Started

By 1979, the country was beginning to have more positive feelings toward Vietnam veterans. Movies were dealing more realistically with their issues. And Congress had declared a “Vietnam Veterans Week” for that April to honor those who had returned home.

One film that came out early that year, The Deer Hunter, explored the effects of war on three friends, their families and a tight-knit community. When Scruggs went to see the movie in early 1979, it wasn’t the graphic war scenes that haunted him. It was the reminder that the men who died in Vietnam all had faces and names, as well as friends and families who loved them dearly. He could still picture the faces of his 12 buddies, but the passing years were making it harder and harder to remember their names.

That bothered him. It seemed unconscionable that he–or anyone else–should be allowed to forget. For weeks, he obsessed about the idea of building a memorial.

“It just resonated,” he explained. “If all of the names could be in one place, these names would have great power—a power to heal. It would have power for individual veterans, but collectively, they would have even greater power to show the enormity of the sacrifices that were made.”

His research had proven that post-traumatic stress was real and had shone a light on the challenges faced by a significant number of military veterans. The idea for a memorial seemed like a natural extension of his work and his growing desire to find a way to help veterans.  He had studied the work of psychiatrist Carl Jung, a student of Sigmund Freud, who wrote of shared societal values. As Scruggs analyzed the concept of collective psychological states, he realized that, just as veterans needed psychological healing, so too did the nation.

“The Memorial had several purposes,” he explained.  “It would help veterans heal. Its mere existence would be societal recognition that their sacrifices were honorable rather than dishonorable. Veterans needed this, and so did the nation. Our country needed something symbolic to help heal our wounds.”

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Jan Scruggs

The Impact

Vietnam vet Jan Scruggs is the man behind the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. Barry Petersen reflects with Scruggs on the impact the memorial has veterans and their loved ones in this CBS Evening News special.

Watch this video
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Jan Scruggs

Additional Resources

Articles

Vietnam War Memorial Advocate Jan Scruggs Talks PBS Monuments Doc: Military.com (2018)

For the man behind the Vietnam Wall, the war’s worst moment did not come in combat: Washington Post (2018)

Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Founder: Monument Almost Never Got Built: NPR (2015)

Never Stop Trying: Maj. Clifton Cushman written by Jan C. Scruggs (2010)

Jan Scruggs’ Battle to Heal A Nation’s War Wounds: Washington Post (1988)

Books

Dreams Unfulfilled: Stories of the Men and Women on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Compiled by Jan C. Scruggs 2010

Writings On The Wall Compiled by Jan C. Scruggs 1994

Why Vietnam Still Matters Compiled by Jan C. Scruggs 1996

Voices from The Wall Compiled by Jan C. Scruggs 1998

The American Patriot A Tradition Of Service Complied By Jan C. Scruggs 2006

To Heal a Nation: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial 10th Anniversary Edition by Jan C. Scruggs 1992

The War and the Wall: Service, Sacrifice and Honor Compiled by Jan Scruggs 2002

Films

To Heal a Nation (1992) – Chronicles Jan Scruggs’ efforts to build a Vietnam Veterans  Memorial. Stars Eric Roberts as Jan Scruggs

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