Founding The Wall: A Conversation with Jan Scruggs

20 minutesCombat-wounded in Vietnam at 19, Jan Scruggs returned home carrying shrapnel and the invisible weight of PTSD. One night in a theater watching The Deer Hunter sparked his audacious idea: build a memorial that could heal a divided nation. In this fast-moving conversation Jan walks us through the firefight that nearly killed him, the $2,800 gamble that launched the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the design battles with critics, and the decades of stress that eventually landed him in a coma. He closes with a clear hope—that every visitor to the Wall will grasp the real cost of war and leave determined to serve others.Listen to learn:How a 19-year-old draftee became the driving force behind America’s most visited war memorialThe inside story of choosing Maya Lin’s minimalist design and weathering the backlashLeadership lessons from fundraising, politics, and persistence under pressureWhy remembrance remains a powerful antidote to divisionSupport the showLearn • Serve • Lead • Remember 🎧 Never miss an episode—subscribe on YouTube or grab the RSS.Follow & join the conversation ➔ @HeroesPath on X, Instagram, LinkedIn • #HeroesPathPodcast