Posted on 05/28/2004 5:07:42 AM PDT by BigWaveBetty
The memorial honors the 16 million who served in the armed forces of the U.S. during World War II, the more than 400,000 who died, and the millions who supported the war effort from home. Symbolic of the defining event of the 20th Century, the memorial is a monument to the spirit, sacrifice, and commitment of the American people to the common defense of the nation and to the broader causes of peace and freedom from tyranny throughout the world. It will inspire future generations of Americans, deepening their appreciation of what the World War II generation accomplished in securing freedom and democracy. Above all, the memorial stands as an important symbol of American national unity, a timeless reminder of the moral strength and awesome power that can flow when a free people are at once united and bonded together in a common and just cause.
Site
The first step in establishing the memorial was the selection of an appropriate site. Congress provided legislative authority for siting the memorial in the prime area of the national capital, known as Area I, which includes the National Mall. The National Park Service, the Commission of Fine Arts, and the National Capital Planning Commission approved selection of the Rainbow Pool site at the east end of the Reflecting Pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. President Clinton dedicated the memorial site during a formal ceremony on Veterans Day 1995.
Design
ABMC engaged the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Public Buildings Service to act as its agent to manage the memorial project. The design submitted by Friedrich St.Florian, an architect based in Providence, R.I., was selected as one of six semi-finalists in an open, national competition. Leo A Daly, an international architecture firm, assembled the winning team with St.Florian as the design architect. The team also includes George E. Hartman of Hartman-Cox Architects, Oehme van Sweden & Associates, and sculptor Ray Kaskey. St.Florian’s memorial design concept was approved by the Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission in the summer of 1998. The commissions approved the preliminary design in 1999, the final architectural design and several ancillary elements in 2000, granite selections in 2001, and sculpture and inscriptions in 2002 and 2003.
Fund-raising Campaign
The memorial is funded primarily by private contributions. The fund-raising campaign was led by National Chairman Senator Bob Dole and National Co-Chairman Frederick W. Smith.
Senator Dole, a World War II veteran seriously wounded on the battlefield and twice decorated with the Bronze Star and Purple Heart, was the Republican nominee for president in 1996 and the longest-serving Republican Leader in the U.S. Senate.
Frederick W. Smith is chairman, president and chief executive officer of FedEx Corporation, a $17 billion global transportation and logistics holding company. He is a graduate of Yale and a former U.S. Marine Corps officer, and serves on the boards of various transport, industry and civic organizations.
The memorial received more than $195 million in cash and pledges. This total includes $16 million provided by the federal government.
Timeline
Construction began in September 2001. The memorial opened to the public on April 29, 2004. The memorial will be dedicated on Saturday, May 29, 2004 -- Memorial Day Weekend.
ABMC
The American Battle Monuments Commission is an independent, executive branch agency with 11 commissioners and a secretary appointed by the president. The ABMC administers, operates and maintains 24 permanent U.S. military cemeteries and 25 memorial structures in 15 countries around the world. The commission is also responsible for the establishment of other memorials in the U.S. as directed by Congress.
Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist Max Desfor poses with his September 2, 1945 photograph (R) of Japan's formal surrender on the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, at the Memories of World War II photography exhibition in Washington, May 24, 2004. The newly published documentary photography book 'Memories of World War II' is being released to coincide with the dedication of the National WWII Memorial in Washington on May 29. REUTERS/Hyungwon Kang
These photographs will be among of the images presented in AP's exhibit 'Memories of World War II''
American soldiers, riding camels while off duty, wave to a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress in this March 1943 file photo, in Tunisia.
U.S. reinforcements wade through the surf as they land at Normandy in the days following the Allies' June 6,1944, D-Day invasion of occupied France.
U.S. troops in the Pacific islands continued to find enemy holdouts in this March 10, 1945 file photo long after the main Japanese forces had either surrendered or disappeared.
Looking north from 44th Street, New York's Times Square is packed Monday, May 7, 1945, with crowds celebrating the news of Germany's unconditional surrender in World War II.
U.S. Marines of the 28th Regiment of the Fifth Division raise the American flag atop Mt. Suribachi, Iwo Jima, on Feb. 23, 1945.
U.S. soldiers of Pennsylvania's 28th Infantry Division march along the Champs Elysees, the Arc de Triomphe in the background, on Aug. 29, 1944, four days after the liberation of Paris, France.
Also on exhibit Norman Rockwell's paintings 'Four Freedoms.'
Freedom of Speech
Freedom to Worship
More photos at wwiimemorial.com
World War II Memorial Rose
sorry, i didn't see your post on krauthammer before I posted. oops.
Gore - do you think its just to throw red meat at the crowd - he's their reminder of a "stolen" election? Big Gay Al is lookng bigger and gayer each time I see him rant on tv.
Finally, a loud and clear voice of opposition against the unprovoked Iraqi war from an American statesman.It came from former Vice President Al Gore, who has given the presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry a needed shot in the arm. Gore also could have been speaking for a growing silent majority.
In a fiery, eloquent speech last week at New York University, Gore shamed the "go along, get along" Democrats, including Kerry, who had been soft pedaling the issue of the war and the damage it has done to our name and prestige in the world.
Kerry has played it so safe that he has brought his own leadership into question.The Kerry camp is obviously not happy that a gloves-off Gore took the lead, showing their candidate up for timidity. But the vice president -- who spent years in Congress and eight years as vice president -- knows there is too much at stake in terms of depleted U.S. honor and moral authority to play politics now. It lives
Algore? God only knows why dims would want him other than to fire up the faithful. Personally I think continuously harping on the "stolen election" can't be very attractive to many people who might have been swayed to their side.
This is the kind of thinking one must posses to think algore isn't a mental case:
"Declaring war on terrorism was understandable, perhaps even appropriate, as a figure of speech but the president meant it literally and that is when things started going seriously wrong."
~George Soros at Columbia University on May 17, 2004
Two choices for summertime reading at the beach: Clinton's book or the Chicago phone book. I'll take the latter - no intentional inaccuracies.
As all probably have heard by now, Soros also equated the Iraqi prison "abuses" (committed by seven people, in which no one died, even of embarrassment) to the Sept. 11 attacks. Hmmm, okay ...
June 4, 2004 -- Money and wisdom do not necessarily go hand in hand, as they say.
Take, for example, George Soros, the Hungarian-born gazillionaire hedge-fund honcho who's been chewing on President Bush's ankles of late.
Yesterday, at a meeting of lefty activists in Washington, Soros pronounced a moral equivalence between the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.
"There is, I'm afraid, a direct connection between those two events," he declared, "because the way President Bush conducted the war on terror converted us from victims into perpetrators."
Nonsense.
But nothing new. Soros has been talking like that for weeks.
Except there was one thing a little different about yesterday's tirade: Soros was introduced at by none other than Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who declared, "We need people like George Soros, who is fearless and willing to step up when it counts."
We? New York? America?
Or just the Democratic Party?
Until now, New York's junior senator has taken particular care not to associate herself with crackpots like Soros.
And, after the fact, her office was lightning-quick to announce: "Sen. Clinton doesn't believe that 9/11 is comparable to anything else."
Whatever that means, it's not a repudiation of Soros or his noxious message.
Could it be that Hillary Rodham Clinton has finally decided to make common cause with the Michael Moore wing of the Democratic Party?
This bears watching. Link
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MSNBC describes Soros as the intriguing new star at this week’s “Take Back America” conference.
Speaking of Soros' ancestral home of Hungary, I'm reminded of what I saw on my trip to Budapest in 1987 - a monument to the Soviet Union for having liberated the Hungarian people from the Nazis. Looks like the Marxist atheist Soros longs for those good ol' days.
Thanks for that info on the news analyist.
I just knew he was dealing with a mobility problem of some kind.
If you don't want to be treated like a slut, don't dress like one, I tell my daughter and her friends. If you don't want to send a message about sex, don't dress your daughter in sexually provocative clothes, I tell other mothers. [After years and years of upbraiding men and boys for their inability to not notice that a female is dressed like a hooker!]
Do you think someone could tell Irv Teitelbaum and the old guys. Also, give him my number. I know a lot about teenagers' clothes. If I'm not home, I'm just at the mall, looking for something decent and age-appropriate for my daughter to wear. Believe me, it's not easy, and he and Victor, as far as I can tell, aren't making it any easier. Link
Beam me up Scotty.
Hi IG! whatchaupto?
the appropriate dress issue is causing extreme conflict for a friend of mine and her pre-teen daughter. My sister-n-law is so glad to have all boys. She says puberty is hard enough w/o the clothing issues to fight over.
Sounds like Susan Estrogen is telling a lot of people what to do. Quelle surprise.
I enjoy watching Susan - it seems like she's using something that causes her to get loopier, and loopier, as the day progresses, until the evening when she's rolling her head, her eyes, and looks completely ready to fall outta her chair.
Nice work with the email - very nice.
Living well isn't the only best revenge. heh heh heh!
Same ability to tell people how to do everything... See post #139
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