According to Brent Ashabranner in his introduction to Always to Remember, Jan Craig Scruggs, a Vietnam veteran born in 1950, had the idea that Vietnam veterans like himself deserved a memorial.
Veterans of other wars were honored, but since the Vietnam War was opposed by many people, Vietnam veterans were not honored in such a way. Jan Scruggs, however, believed that the 58 thousand servicemen and women killed in the war deserved to be honored with a memorial, and so he created a fund to carry out his idea.
