It was not until she was announced nationally as the winner of the design competition, did she smile.
When asked about how she came up with the design, she stated in an interview with Washington Post writer Phil McCombs:.
It was while I was at the site that I designed it. I just sort of visualized it. It just popped into my head. Some people were playing Frisbee. It was a beautiful park. I didn't want to destroy a living park. You use the landscape When I looked at the site I just knew I wanted something horizontal that took you in, that made you feel safe within the park, yet at the same time reminding you of the land. So I just imagined opening up the earth (The Vietnam Veteran's).
In other words, let us not destroy anything to create this. Let us create a safe place, within a safe place.
Although there was a lot of support for Maya Lin's design, there was an equal amount of opposition to her design. A member of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Tom Carhart, was the most vocal in the opposition, even though he had helped raise funds for the memorial (Feldman, Downs, McManus, 463). He even entered a design of his own in the competition. Ross Perot, who is from Texas, was also in opposition to Lin's design. No one in Washington D.C. publicly stated Perot's exact role in the opposition, but off the record, many people believed he was the organizer of all of the opposition. Perot denied the allegations and said all he tried to do was "try to get the Fund off their ego trip long enough to remember their constituency of two million vets- (Feldman, Downs, McManus, 463). Despite their efforts, Lin's design was approved. .
The opponents of Lin's design did not admit defeat. Although they tried to stop Lin's design and failed, they did get a concession to have the addition of a second monument. It was a larger-than-life statue of three soldiers accompanied by a flagpole.
The design of the Memorial is much understated in its design.
