The problem is that memory does not subject itself to scrutiny. The war encompasses all those things. If the same percentage had fallen in Vietnam, there would be 4 million names on the memorial wall in Washington instead of the 58,219 inscribed there. The war's devastation reaches into our own time as Americans, often with a vested interest, try to make sense of it all. That's why questions have been raised in some quarters about what story will be told and how.
Military enthusiasts are concerned about losing the battle stories.
While he agrees that there is a place for African-American issues, he does not want to see slavery dominate the discussion. Yet it was the general exclusion of the topic of slavery at the battlefields that led Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr., D-Ill., a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, to push for a congressional directive insisting that the park service start talking about it sooner rather than later. So Jackson obliged. No one knows better than park service rangers that Americans bring varied and deeply held beliefs to the battlefields. But, Pitcaithley argues, the park service's mission requires that rangers step forward as educators.