Beginning in 1962, when Mao Zedong agreed to supply North Vietnam with 90,000 rifles and artillery pieces, China became involved in the Vietnam War. Mao declared, “Whatever Vietnam needs, we will supply as a priority.” China provided North Vietnam with large quantities of tanks, guns, artillery, and various military supplies; even the uniforms of the North Vietnamese army were supplied by China. Chinese Communist forces also helped train North Vietnamese troops, imparting guerrilla warfare experience and sending military advisers. China assisted in building large numbers of industrial facilities and railways in North Vietnam.

After the launch of Operation Rolling Thunder, China dispatched engineering troops and air-defense units to North Vietnam to help repair facilities damaged by U.S. bombing. This allowed North Vietnamese forces to concentrate on combat operations in the south. From 1965 to 1970, a cumulative total of 320,000 Chinese troops were sent to North Vietnam, with a peak of 170,000 in 1967.

The Vietnam War was the longest war in U.S. history. Over ten years, the United States spent at least $250 billion. Although the United States was not defeated militarily, the war altered the Cold War balance and weakened America. In the 1970s, facing an increasingly aggressive Soviet Union, President Nixon visited China and cooperated with Mao Zedong to contain Soviet expansion. The Vietnam War also intensified racial and civil rights tensions within the United States, leaving the nation deeply divided and inflicting profound psychological trauma on the American people.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial commemorates those who died in the Vietnam War. It consists of three parts: the statue of three soldiers, the Vietnam Women’s Memorial, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, the last of which is the most famous. The memorial is often called the Vietnam Wall, or simply “the Wall.”

Completed in 1982, the memorial is located northeast of the Lincoln Memorial, near the Constitution Gardens on the National Mall. It receives about three million visitors annually. It was designed by Chinese American architect Maya Lin.

The Moving Wall

John Devitt, a Vietnam War veteran from California, attended the dedication ceremony of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in 1982. Recognizing the Wall’s healing power, he vowed to create a mobile version so that those unable to travel to Washington, D.C., could see and touch the names of their friends or loved ones.

Using his own funds, Devitt established a Vietnam veterans organization. With the help of friends, he created a half-scale replica of the memorial, named “The Moving Wall,” which was first displayed to the public in Tyler, Texas, in 1984.

The Moving Wall soon traveled to hundreds of towns and cities across the United States, staying five or six days at each stop. Veterans’ organizations or other civic groups made arrangements months in advance. Thousands of Americans volunteered donations nationwide to honor the fallen.

As many cities sought to host it, a second Moving Wall was created in 1987, and a third in 1989. By 2006, the Moving Wall had visited more than 1,000 locations. Attendance at each site ranged from 5,000 to more than 50,000 visitors; over more than 20 years, total visitors reached into the tens of millions.

The Moving Wall has been visited by tens of millions of Americans across the country, reflecting the public’s deep remembrance of those who died in the Vietnam War, their respect for soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the nation, and the enduring pain the war inflicted on American society.

The Vietnam War was an unprecedented “disastrous war” in U.S. history. Over ten years, half a million troops were committed, yet the fighting yielded no decisive results and dragged the nation into a quagmire. In the 1960s, the United States realized the need to contain the spread of communism—morally, this was not wrong. However, it underestimated the strong backing North Vietnam received from China and the Soviet Union. North Vietnam acted like a pawn crossing a river, advancing relentlessly with no retreat. As the war dragged on and antiwar sentiment grew at home, the United States was forced to withdraw. Fortunately, after the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s, Vietnam gradually moved closer to the United States, helping to ease the psychological scars left on the American people.