VVA CHAPTER 421  

On Memorial Day 2001, the National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum added a stirring and spectacular new exhibit to its already highly praised fine art collection. The work of art, an immense 10 x 40 foot sculpture entitled Above & Beyond, is comprised of imprinted dog tags, one for each of the more than 58,000 service men and women who died in the Vietnam War. Above & Beyond is the first new permanent Vietnam War memorial, other than The Wall in Washington, D.C., to list all those killed in action. When visitors first enter the museum, they will hear a sound like wind chimes coming from above them and their attention will be drawn upward 24 feet to the ceiling of the two-story high atrium. There they will see tens of thousands of metal dog tags, spaced evenly one inch apart, suspended from fine lines which will allow them to move like a living thing with the shifts in air currents.