Posted on 07/21/2018 5:38:07 AM PDT by huldah1776
A federal panel on Thursday cleared the way for a memorial to be built along the National Mall honoring the American service members who fought in Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield.
Pending final approvals, the National Desert Storm War Memorial would be built at 23rd Street and Constitution Avenue, not far from Vietnam Veterans Memorial, World War II Memorial and Korean War Veterans Memorial, Military Times reported.
“These men and women who went to Desert Shield, Desert Storm put their lives on the line for this country, and they deserve to be placed next to my brothers and sisters who are on that wall in Vietnam, in World War II and Korea, where I served,” Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., told the National Capital Planning Commission, according to Military.com.
snip
“Really, what was most important to us was not visibility, but visit-ability,” said Scott Stump, president of the National Desert Storm War Memorial Association, according to WTOP.
The organization has waged a three-year fight to have the memorial built where it wanted.
“It’s been exhaustive,” he said. “The average person has no idea the level of work, time, wear and tear that is involved. It’s just a grueling process that we’ve endured.”
But in the end, they won.
“It’s in close proximity to the National Mall and the other memorials and commemorative works to where a person could actually access it, could walk to it, easily,” Stump said. “We felt like if you have something that’s the most beautiful memorial in the world, but it takes a lot of work for people to get there and people aren’t going to visit, then it kind of defeats our purpose.”
(Excerpt) Read more at westernjournal.com ...
love talking to myself (ha) but went back to get an image (couldn’t find link to copy—CSS) and read that there is a fundraiser in Kansas City TODAY.
Operation Kansas City
Saturday, July 21, 2018
5:00 pm - 11:00 pm
Bar Louie
101 E 14th St.
Kansas City, MO 64106-2920
If I drove through the night I could make it on Monday.
Operation Kansas City II
Monday, July 23, 2018
7:00 pm - 11:00 pm
Bar Louie
101 E. 14th St.
Kansas City, Missouri 64106-2920
I bet anything the democrats will protest this.
I know, I know … as long as one blade of grass remains, we can always shoehorn another memorial into an already overcrowded space. So here we go. Yes, it's a worthy cause … but let's not ruin one of the last unbuilt sections and destroy a beautiful sightline to the Lincoln Memorial. Put the memorial somewhere else.
It should be built alongside the other war memorials...
Any conflict American military engages in deserves a memorial...
You say adding a war memorial to American heroes RUINS some section???? WTH is your problem??????
What conflict did you dodge??????
Lincoln would be willing to have his memorial REPLACED by any memorial to the fallen military.
Welcome Home, Diana! Big hug!
I served two tours in Vietnam...Welcome home...
Thank you for your service DiW and the photo.
My 20 yr. old son also served in Desert Storm - Army. Our whole family was concerned for his well being and thankful when he returned to the US. Older brother called him ‘my hero’. Lots of memories and pride.
Thank you again.
sod
You’re welcome! I was no Hero, LOL!
I was all packed and ready to go; I was with the 32d Light Infantry Brigade at the time, but Stormin’ Norman got in and out so fast, my unit never was deployed other than stateside.
I managed eight Family Assistance Centers for the NG & Reserve Troops for the next 2 years - this was the first time NG and Reserve troops were mobilized, so their families needed a lot of help. We also went to neighboring states to show them how to run Assistance Centers, too.
Now, if we could just get EVERYONE home and OUT of the ME. I mean, 26 years has been MORE than enough time, blood and treasure to waste over there!
I’m going to do some fundraising for the memorial. :)
Everyone who served honorably is a hero in my book....
If you click on the memorial website link above, it opens with the same flag graphic.
Clicking on the menu icon in the upper right hand corner of the website home page gives access the memorial’s design: it is a spiral descending into the earth ending with a panel recording the names of the fallen and a military-themed statue.
Desert Shield/Desert Storm had a defined beginning and end. We can enumerate the fallen and honor them (rather belatedly, I might add).
We are now approaching the 17th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and the beginning of the 18th year of the war on terrorism. How are we, as a nation, going to recognize the service and sacrifices being made daily by service men and women on our behalf?
“How are we, as a nation, going to recognize the service and sacrifices being made daily by service men and women on our behalf?”
My plan? Vote Republican and keep power OUT of the hands of the Socialists that want to destroy America, hate cops, want to abolish ICE, put invaders before American Citizens, etc.
I am all for memorializing America's wars and honoring those who served. But everything does not need to be on the Mall, which has become overcrowded. The remaining open areas should be protected; they are the frame and setting for the museums and monuments, and there is already too much clutter.
The WWII Memorial defaced one of the greatest and most iconic vistas in America. For MLK, we chopped out a section of the cherry trees along the tidal basin. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Women in Vietnam Memorial and the Korean War Memorial are all fine in and of themselves, but in the setting of the Mall, they are out of scale (too small) and too crowded, jumbled into a cluster of intrusions at the western end of the Reflecting Pool. (They are just out of site to the left of the picture you posted.) They should all be somewhere else. The Museum of the American Indian is a disruptive architectural presence that killed important sightlines; it would be an ok building somewhere else, but not where it is. (It's also a dud of a museum because the tribes got to control content.) The African American Museum intrudes on space that should have been left clear, as it is part of the visual frame for the Washington Monument; again, it would be a fine building somewhere else, but not where it's sited. And so it goes.
It has become customary for every group with a worthy cause to strike an attitude and say, "We are being disrespected if we don't get our space on the Mall." And time and again, Congress caves to this kind of pressure. They are ruining the Mall. Maybe it's time to just pave the whole thing over, rename it "The Plaza of Identity Politics," and require all memorials to be mounted on skids so they can be rotated in and out every six months or so, just so every group that can afford a lobbyist can have its day "on the Mall." You think it's going to stop with Desert Storm? The next time the Democrats are in power, we'll be adding a rainbow flag memorial, a Hispanic Heritage Museum, something for Asian Americans and an Obama Memorial opposite the Jefferson, but bigger because Jefferson was a slaveholder and Obama reinvented the universe.
There have been various proposals over the years to create new museum and memorial clusters in DC away from the Mall. Gentrification and some very nice large-scale neighborhood redevelopments (e.g. the Southeast and Southwest waterfronts) have already claimed some of the choice sites, but there are still a number of good ones left. The trick is, some group has to agree to be the first to pioneer a new space. If it were up to me, I'd start by opening a couple of new Smithsonian Museums on a new site with growth potential, and plan from the beginning for long term expansion.
There was a wonderful plan that proposed this perhaps 15 or 20 years ago. That one was centered on turning the South Capitol Street, North Capitol Street and East Capitol Street corridors into new monumental entryways into central DC. If you think in terms of rebuilding those axes, and think in terms of a hundred year plan, you can begin to see the potential. East Capitol Street runs through a now renovated and very attractive historic district that should be left untouched on the DC side of the river, but the stadium-armory complex is now in play (as RFK Stadium is empty and derelict, and the DC General site is now a homeless shelter that is slated to close). A lot could be done on that site and tied into the redevelopment of the Anacostia River corridor, which is rapidly changing and is likely to become one of the premier urban riverfronts in America. The high ground is on the Anacostia side of the river, and the whole arc from Bladensburg on down to Buzzard Point, where the Anacostia flows into the Potomac, will be golden. It'll take some time for this to happen, but things are already moving fast. Far better to start siting some museums and memorials here than to keep shoehorning compromised designs into inadequate spaces on an overcrowded Mall.
Talking to me about it isn’t going to change my mind. You need to find out who the planners are in D.C. and pester them.
It took years for this last monument to be approved; you needed to be actively working against it in that time frame, or find out what’s next and actively work against them.
This is America. Have at it. :)
I saw the design from above but tried to get the one with the lower point of view. Don’t know about the single entrance though. I’m a bit claustrophobic.
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