Kentucky Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Most war memorials list names on a wall. This one uses the sun itself. The Kentucky Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Frankfort, dedicated in nineteen eighty-eight, takes the form of an enormous sundial.

A fourteen-foot stainless steel gnomon rises from the center of a granite plaza, and the eleven hundred and eight names of Kentuckians killed or missing in Vietnam are positioned so that the tip of the gnomon's shadow falls on each name on the anniversary of that person's death. The placement is calculated from the exact latitude of Frankfort, the height of the gnomon, and the physics of solar movement. The twenty-three Kentuckians still listed as missing in action are placed where the gnomon's shadow never falls, an intentional acknowledgment that their fate remains unresolved.

Architect and veteran Helm Roberts designed it.