President Barack Obama hits it out of the park.

[calimary]

9. I never went to war and have always objected to them. I went there in the mid-80's

and walked the whole length of that monument. I started at one end, dry-eyed. By the time I reached the other end, I was nearly sobbing. You walk on a downward-sloping path, leading down below ground-level, til it's almost as though you're submerged - by these tall, slick stone panels carved with all these names. At either end, it starts with one line of names. Then, as you start the walk downward toward the center, there are two or three lines of names. And then more lines. And then more. And then STILL more lines of names. And it just keeps going til you're drowning in names - on slick stone panels that stand higher than your head. And by then you feel like you're drowning in your own tears. And then you start walking back up from the center, which is the lowest point, along the panels sloping upwards toward ground-level. By the end of the journey, you're emotionally spent, and you feel like it's a huge and incredibly profound life/war metaphor. You've climbed back up above ground-level (where the living dwell) from the below-ground-level monument (the realm of the dead), and you emerge into the light and to the day-to-day life that continues around you, fairly oblivious of everything else. And you carry with you the memories of being submerged with all those names. The names of the dead. You emerge, alright. But you emerge quite changed. Affected deeply by what you walked past, down there below-ground-level, and VERY sobered.

It's the heaviest, most profound, most viscerally powerful monument I've EVER seen. Especially close up. It compels you very quietly and in the most subtle fashion to experience the whole concept of war and loss - in a very personal way. It's utter genius on so many levels. Almost ridiculously simple. And more powerful and personally moving than ANY other monuments I've ever seen. Designed by a young woman, too. How 'bout that.