The World War II Memorial
The first impression I think most anyone has of the newest addition to the National Mall is its immensity. The size and scope, the “footprint,” as the architects would say, is enormous. Depending on one’s perspective, this is the monument’s source of its strength or of its weakness, and perhaps both simultaneously. The World War II monument is much like an ’80s Hair Metal Band, or, if you prefer, a Wagner opera. It is bombastic and outsized and showy and overdone and overwrought. It is not especially subtle. It is obtrusive. And it is very busy – there are columns and pools and towers and steps and walls ascending and descending and stars to commemorate the dead and quotations and bass relief sculptures and my God, just lots of stuff. It is almost as if MC Escher’s less clever and whimsical little brother headed the Dollywood design team and was asked to do the set for “World War II: The Musical Tribute!” And yet . . .
And yet, while it is big and bombastic and overwrought and too, too, too, well, too much, it is also something quite spectacular. And keep in mind that Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial was almost universally loathed when it first opened, and now it might be the most popular, or at least is arguably the most effective, of all of the monuments on the Mall. The World War II Memorial has been the source of much overheated critical prose in the past few years and months and weeks and days. And yet while maybe in the end it could have been smaller, or more understated, or more coherent, it is still profoundly effective.
When I was there today, everywhere one turned there was another veteran and his (or her) family. It was obvious how important this monument is to these older folks who helped save democracy and protect freedom and who are dying at a rate of 1100 per day, nearly 8000 per week. Next to, on, or beneath each pillar representing each the 48 states and the territories that made up the United States during the war, family members, friends and colleagues have erected small shrines, or left pictures or mementoes or cards or flowers or some combination. Veterans were taking pictures next to the pillars of their states, beneath the monument anchoring the theatre in which they fought – the Atlantic providing ballast to the south side, the Pacific to the North – or next to quotations that meant something to them. There were lots of tears, lots of smiles, and lots of reunions with friends living and dead.
Children and parents and middle-aged couples and black folks and white folks and Asians and handicapped and people attractive and not so attractive and guys like me wandered in awe and wonder and in puzzlement as we tried to take it all in. The giant bubbling pool, almost an extension of the Lincoln Memorial’s reflecting pool, stands at the center, with its fountains blasting water that will tease and soothe on hot, sweaty Washington days. This middle area was perhaps of most concern to me over the past few years. As I’d spend evenings on the Mall playing in the softball leagues that take over the Mall after the workday throughout the spring and summer I’d glance at the construction site with a worried glance and furrowed brow wondering what it would do to one of my favorite vistas on earth, that connecting the Lincoln and Washington Memorials and the Capitol Building to the east. Although the memorial is fully finished, this question remains to be answered. Yes, one can still see each of the monuments of two of our greatest presidents from the other. And in time, the World War II Memorial will feel like it belongs. But as of now it is still like a new son-in-law, trying to fit in, warily watched by the brothers, open, welcoming, but reserved, not fully willing to commit to the new interloper.
It was clear that World War II needed a monument, and that such a monument would be of greater scope and scale and importance than most others in our nation’s capital. While the “Greatest Generation” has become an over-sold, and maybe even overstated commodity, there is no doubt that World War II and the men who fought in it and the women who served it and the home front that struggled and sacrificed and supported it warrants our utmost attention and respect. World War II helped define the century, change the world, and to push America not only to achieve its promise on the battlefield, but also to address its perfections off of it in the decades that followed. Guys like me, cynics, critics, pundits, might have our qualms with the newest addition to the Mall. But the World War II Memorial is now part of Washington, and thus in an important way is a part of who we are as a country and as a people. It is not perfect, far from it. But as I heard many a veteran say over this past weekend, to himself, to compatriots, or to wives, “It’s about time.”