20 minutes

Combat-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 memorial
• The inside story of choosing Maya Lin’s minimalist design and weathering the backlash
• Leadership lessons from fundraising, politics, and persistence under pressure
• Why remembrance remains a powerful antidote to division

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