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April 6, 2004

The National World War II Memorial

Photos shot April 19, 2004. Click on each for a higher resolution

The National Coalition to Save Our Mall joins the Nation in honoring those who served in war action and on the home front in WW II, especially those who sacrificed their lives. The Coalition never questioned whether WWII veterans should be honored. Indeed, four of the Coalition’s eight-member Board of Directors are WWII veterans. Rather, the Coalition asked -- Is this the right place? Is this the right image? Is this the right message? And was it right for Congress to override its own Commemorative Works Act (intended to bring some restraint and order to development of the National Mall) when it legislatively prohibited any judicial challenge to the memorial. The Coalition’s attempts to have these questions thoughtfully considered were thwarted by all three branches of the government, including the US Supreme Court.

The WW II Memorial now divides and blocks the grand open space that was the Mall area between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. The Coalition opposed this location because it required destruction of the historic Rainbow Pool, part of the 1901-1902 McMillan Plan for the Mall. The Coalition opposed this placement because it severed — both physically and symbolically -- the historic, uninterrupted connection of open space and vista between the monuments to Presidents Washington and Lincoln. And it opposed the memorial in this place because the Memorial plaza’s martial and funerary symbols are better suited to Arlington National Cemetery than to the Mall’s open space dedicated to American founding principles. The massive WW II memorial dwarfs the simple and contemplative memorial for the Signers of the Declaration of Independence in nearby Constitution Gardens, and it encroaches on the Lincoln Memorial grounds and Reflecting Pool.

The World War II Memorial is in many ways a lost opportunity. Full and open public discussion of how we as a society wished to commemorate WW II in our nation’s capital — a discussion never permitted to happen for the WW II Memorial — would no doubt have opened a debate about history, memory, American values, the power of the democratic ideal, and the role of America in modern world history. The Memorial — and the National Mall -- would have benefited from that debate.

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