U.S. WWI memorial (or rather, lack there of)

[rm]

The U.S. has no national memorial to its soldiers who died in WWI. The last surviving U.S. veteran of that war is trying to do something about it. He's 107.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/09/09/world.war.one.memorial/index.html

Comments

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

He looks really great for 107. I had a great-great aunt that died at 104.

Anyway, he's right - it's shameful :(

N.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Wow.
WWI is Canada's war up here. Everything we do to honour our military veterans, and commemorate our war dead, is built around it.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Australia is like that too as far as I could tell. I was completely freaked out by the fact that there are various labor union memorials to their WWI dead in pretty much every train station and park in Sydney.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

This isn't surprising. Both countries came of age in that war. Australians and Canadians
led the fighting all the way across Europe.

[threewalls]

Also, high schools and universities.

Nearly every Australian high school of a requisite age will list their WWI dead prominently.

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

Have you heard the song 'and the band played Waltzing Matilda'? ( e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG48Ftsr3OI ) I have no idea how well known it is in the US. Or of course you might have come across it in Oz.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I, I think like many Americans, know it because a version of it became popular in, I think, the 1970s when there was this whole Irish folk music thing here, and a major band of that scene recorded it.

It's a gut punch.

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

Yes, it always gets me. WWI is quite mind-boggling, I always think of this Wikipedia picture which attempts to explain it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:WWIchartX.svg

It's a gut punch.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

This poem is almost guaranteed to make any Canadian veteran(and not a few life long civilians) grow moist eyed:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Flanders_Fields
We've printed this (and it's French translation on our money!)

Re: It's a gut punch.

[editrx.livejournal.com]

The VFW in our town sells lapel poppies on Remembrance Day every year -- surely other American VFWs much do it?

Re: It's a gut punch.

[laurab1.livejournal.com]

Some towns do sell them, yes. But poppies for Remembrance Sunday certainly aren't as common in the USA as they are in the Commmonwealth and Europe, I learned, when writing this story, and the one I've linked in the post:

http://laurab1.livejournal.com/282296.html

[browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com]

Everywhere I go in Europe, I trip over WWI memorials. I'm surprised we don't have one ourselves!

We have a WWI memorial

[(Anonymous)]

We have a national WWI memorial. It is in Kansas City. It is called the liberty memorial and has included the National WWI Museum. It was dedicated in the 1920's by many of the U.S. military leaders and leaders of our allies. Check it out. www.libertymemorialmuseum.org

Re: We have a WWI memorial

[rm.livejournal.com]

Hrrrr. I guess we just don't have one in DC then? I can't decide if this is bad me for skimming the CNN article or bad CNN for not being precise.

Re: We have a WWI memorial

[editrx.livejournal.com]

Correct, there is none in DC.

[marchek.livejournal.com]

The First World War has always fascinated me the most. I'm not surprised that there aren't multitudes of monuments in the U.S. but if I'm not mistaken there is actually a national monument, it's just kind of small and hidden. I vaguely remember it from my summer internship in D.C.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Nope. It's a local memorial for residents of the District who died. People have talked about converting it into the national memorial for years.

[marchek.livejournal.com]

Ah, I stand corrected. There should bloody well be a national monument then.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

Louisville WWI veteran

[(Anonymous)]

I appreciate the effort put out by this gentleman, but he is not the last. Rex Robley is a Louisville native and enlisted in 1918. He was born May 4, 1901, and is still very much alive.
God Bless all our veterans

U.S. WWI Memorial

[(Anonymous)]

It is hard to get funding for a memorial or really anything that matters in the U.S.. If they start, it will become political, then any ideads will be called racitst or insensitive. Then the ACLU will sue because NAMBLA was not represented in it or the mere metion of god. The NAACP will say it promotes "whiteness." The Democrates will argue that it will disenfranchise Nazi-american's, and by the time all of these suites are final, the last living vet will have been dead for 25 years, and the lawyers would have made 20 million for a memorial that costs 1 million. That is the new liberal/progressive american way of getting nothing done. What I just described applies to any project in america.