War Memorial

Seeing artists' renderings of the proposed World War II memorial on the mall in Washington (editorial and Calendar, July 19) brought to mind not the sacrifices of American servicemen and women in that conflict, but the designs of Albert Speer, Hitler's favorite architect and his minister of armaments. The football field-size oval site surrounded by 17-foot-high stone pillars reminded me of Speer's design for the 1934 Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg, where he surrounded the Zeppelin Field with antiaircraft spotlights to produce columns of light.

WASHINGTON - The fight for a national World War I memorial in the nation's capital will continue in the new year. Legislation sent by Congress to President Obama calls for creating a commission to plan for activities to commemorate the centennial of the Great War. A bill approved earlier by the House called for a national memorial in Washington but the provision was stripped out by the Senate. The final measure was approved by the House on Monday.    David DeJonge, president and co-founder of the  WWI Memorial Foundation, said he hopes that a national memorial in Washington will be considered in the next Congress.

With U.S. military personnel continuing to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan, veterans groups and families will gather Sunday in Irvine to dedicate what may be the nation's first permanent memorial to men and women lost in those wars. The Northwood Gratitude and Honor Memorial, which began as an informal monument built of wooden posts, photos and hand-written notes, now features a series of five granite-faced sentinels etched with the names of 5,714 service members killed in operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom.

The enormously moving documentary "Honor Flight" proves a deft snapshot of a worthy nonprofit group as well as a profound tribute to America's brave, often unsung World War II veterans. Director Dan Hayes spotlights the Milwaukee-based Stars and Stripes Honor Flight, one of 117 volunteer hubs across the U.S. that raises money to fly WWII vets to Washington, D.C., to visit the National World War II Memorial. Since roughly 900 WWII vets reportedly die each day, the clock is ticking for these elderly ex-soldiers for whom this special trip may well be their last.

After more than a decade of planning, a war memorial honoring the nation's nearly 3,500 recipients of the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military award, will be unveiled today at a downtown Los Angeles park. But critics have argued that the city failed to properly scrutinize the project and wrongly allowed it to be built over an ancient Native American village. They plan to go to court Monday to try to force it to be dismantled from the site considered to be the historic birthplace of Los Angeles.

Re: "Stunned Veterans Ponder Next Move in Quest for Memorial" (Times, April 30). Recently the Cultural Affairs Commission heard arguments from representatives of the International Korean War Veterans Memorial and the Friends of the Friendship Bell, an ad hoc citizens group dedicated to preserving the integrity of the Korean Bell of Friendship. The commissioners unanimously rejected the placement of a revised, more violent version of the International Korean War Veterans Memorial adjacent to the bell.

Reading Al Martinez's column on Aug. 1, evoked in me many thoughts and emotions. Martinez's writing is like that though, it grabs you. Feelings about war are a subject we hear a lot about lately. About how we, as a nation, are finally recognizing those who served and died for their country. Now it's politically correct to feel guilt over returning Korean or Vietnam War veterans' treatment. Maybe, as someone who never had to experience battle, I will really never understand the horror and anguish of those men and women.

A unique Vietnam War memorial at Huntington Beach High School is a year old, but unlike the shrine-like wall in Washington, this commemoration to the war dead is not having the impact that the teacher who inspired it had hoped. A few students still praise the idea and say the memorial is important to young people on campus. During a recent noon break, for instance, Shadd Holyfield, a 16-year-old sophomore, stood in front of the memorial and said he found it meaningful.

--Disguising herself in men's clothing, a young Massachusetts woman named Deborah Sampson told recruiters her name was Robert Shurtleff and enlisted in the Army. The year was 1782; her corps was in the Continental Army. Sampson was honorably discharged the next year after seeing battlefield action. Today, there are more than 1.15 million women veterans. And there are those who believe that it's time that the women veterans get their own war memorial.

For nearly two years, Northridge teacher Brian Rooney has been working at the painstaking task of compiling a registry of thousands of war memorials across the country. But now his crusade to get the state and federal governments to keep their own directories of the plaques, flagpoles and other monuments to veterans has become the battleground of a political campaign. Rep. James Rogan (R-Glendale) and his Democratic challenger in the 27th Congressional District, state Sen.

For 65 years, an obelisk-like monument has stood over Boyle Heights on Cesar Chavez Avenue, a tribute to Mexican Americans who gave their lives in war for the United States. Then, sometime in October, thieves struck, making off with one of the large bronze plaques that had been affixed to the Mexican American All Wars Memorial in 1947. They also took two smaller ones nearby. The likely motive is money: The metal may be worth hundreds or thousands of dollars to an unscrupulous recycler who could bale it with other scrap and ship it overseas.

WASHINGTON-- Paying tribute to dead soldiers and their families, President Obama said Monday that the nation had reached a "milestone” of relative peace, noting the end of the Iraq war and plans to end America's role in the Afghan war. “After a decade under a dark cloud of war we can see the light of a new day on the horizon,” Obama told a crowd of military families gathered at Arlington National Cemetery to commemorate Memorial Day. ...

Naomi Wormell is a vicar, not a vigilante. But these days, she finds it hard to choose Christian charity over some swift -- and terrible -- retribution. The centuries-old church she leads in this quiet English village has fallen victim to a plague sweeping across Britain. Like hungry locusts, metal thieves have repeatedly attacked St. Mary's Church, swooping down on its roof in the dead of night and stripping away large sections of its Victorian-era lead cladding. Six times over a four-month period, the heartsick residents of Hatfield Broad Oak awoke to discover yet another piece of their history stolen, most likely to be melted down and sold for scrap.

The Supreme Court has long struggled with the question of whether the 1st Amendment prohibits the display of religious symbols on public property, sometimes producing seemingly contradictory decisions. Now the House wants to add to the court's work. Last week, it approved a bill allowing religious symbols on war memorials. The bill was introduced by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine) after the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals declared the 43-foot cross atop San Diego's Mt. Soledad an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion.

The House on Tuesday approved a measure that seeks to permit religious symbols on federal war memorials, a response to a court ruling that declared a cross atop a San Diego memorial violated the Constitution. The War Memorial Protection Act passed on a voice vote in the Republican-controlled House but faces uncertainty in the Senate. The measure, which would allow religious symbols to be included in military monuments, was introduced by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine) after the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals declared the 43-foot cross atop Mt. Soledad an unconstitutional "government endorsement of religion.

The Italian street artist Blu, whose anti-war mural was removed from the wall of the Geffen Contemporary building last week before the public could see it, has called the destruction of his mural by the Museum of Contemporary Art a form of censorship. Others say it was spectacularly bad planning on the part of the museum, which did not receive a proposal from the artist in advance of his starting work. MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch said Monday that he ordered the whitewash of the mural because its imagery ?

Veterans groups hope to raise enough money to complete a war memorial here in time to unveil it on Veterans Day. The city has already contributed $45,000 for the memorial, which will be at the Norman P. Murray Community and Senior Center. Veterans organizations hope to raise another $30,000. The bronze memorial will laud United States soldiers who served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. The artwork will depict scenes from each armed conflict in which U.S. military personnel died.

The U.S. National World War II Memorial, with 56 stately columns, two arches and a water fountain, was completed on the National Mall here six years ago at a cost of $182 million. Just over a mile away, long covered in algae and hidden in an overgrown grove, lies the humble District of Columbia War Memorial, which honors the 26,000 Washington residents who fought in World War I. The names of 499 Washingtonians who died in the great conflict are inscribed around its base. But nowhere in this city of monuments is a shrine honoring all of the 116,516 Americans who died in battle or from other causes in what was once known as the War to End All Wars.