29 April 2004: The National World War Two Memorial Dedicated In Washington, D.C. To Honor The Greatest Generation

On 29 April 2004, the National World War II Memorial opened in Washington, D.C., to thousands of visitors,

providing overdue recognition for the sixteen million United States men and women

who served in World War II.

The memorial is located on 7.4 acres on the former site of the Rainbow Pool at the National Mall

between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.

In the picture above, the United States Capitol dome is seen to the east beyond the Washington Monument,

and Arlington National Cemetery is located across the Potomac River to the west.

The granite and bronze monument features fountains between arches symbolizing hostilities in Europe and the Far East. The arches are flanked by semicircles of pillars, one each for the states, territories and the District of Columbia. Beyond the pool is a curved wall of 4,000 gold stars, one for every one hundred Americans killed in the war.

An Announcement Stone

proclaims that the memorial honors:

“those Americans who took up the struggle during the Second World War and made the sacrifices to perpetuate the gift our forefathers entrusted to us: A nation conceived in liberty and justice.”

Though the Federal government donated $16 million to the World War II Memorial Fund, it took more than $164 million in private donations to build it.

Former Kansas Senator Bob Dole, who was severely wounded during World War II while serving in Italy,

and actor Tom Hanks were among the most vocal supporters of the World War II Memorial.

Only a fraction of the sixteen million Americans who served in the war would ever see the World War II Memorial. Four million World War II veterans were living at the time of the inception of the World War II Memorial, with hundreds of our Greatest Generation slipping away every day, according to Government records.

The memorial was inspired by Roger Durbin of Berkey, Ohio,

who served under General George S. Patton.

At a fish fry near Toledo in February of 1987, Durbin asked United States Representative Marcy Kaptur why there was no memorial on the Washington Mall to honor World War II veterans.

Kaptur, a Democrat from Ohio, soon introduced legislation to build such a memorial, starting a process that would stumble along through seventeen years of legislative, legal, and artistic entanglements. Durbin died of pancreatic cancer in 2000, and never got to see the fruits of his labor come to pass.

The World War II Memorial was formally dedicated on 29 May 2004 by United States President George W. Bush.

There was something about the Americans who fought in World War II after we joined the fight subsequent to the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. Many had lived through the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the years of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl that soon followed. Just as soon as it looked like the United States might have some better days ahead, we find ourselves enmeshed in the European Theater and the Pacific Theater of World War II.

My dad's older brother was already in the United States Army when the United States was attacked, so my dad wanted to be in the military as well. Seventeen-year-old males could join with parental permission, and my dad got my grandparents to say he was seventeen when he was only fifteen. He joined the United States Navy when he was only fifteen years old, after dropping out of the ninth grade. I have his old Navy ID, and he falsified his year of birth by two years.

He learned to be an electrician in the Navy and parlayed that into a very nice career after his military service; he did quite well for someone with only an eighth-grade education.

My mother was a couple of generations before her time, as she dropped out of high school in the tenth grade and went to Troy State College in southeastern Alabama and learned how to repair and replace airplane radios after they were damaged by enemy fire. She then went to Hickam Field adjacent to Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and served her country during World War II. She also did quite well for herself, given that she only had a ninth-grade education.

After World War II ended, neither of my parents went back to school, but they did marry a year later. They were married for thirty-four years until my dad died at a very early age. He predeceased my mother by twenty years. She never remarried; never wanted to do so.

One of my paternal uncles by marriage served during World War II and Korea, and he and my dad's younger sister were married for sixty-five years before he passed away a few years ago.

One of my maternal uncles served during World War II, and he and my aunt by marriage were married seventy years before he passed away a few years ago as well. He had awful PTSD-triggered nightmares for the rest of his life, and my aunt learned after a few broken ribs and cracked teeth and the like not to try to awaken him. She just quietly got up, packed pillows around him so that he would not fling himself off of the bed, and she went to another bedroom and slept very lightly.

They truly were The Greatest Generation. As my account herein discusses, we are losing our World War II veterans at an alarming rate, and when they are gone, they are gone forever. If you know any such veterans, befriend them, talk to them, help them. They are full of knowledge that is not in books or online materials.

Converse with them.....and learn about the True Meaning Of Life!

Godspeed.

SOURCES: www.wikipedia.org ; www.britannica.com ; www.encyclopedia.com ; www.wwiimemorial.com ; www.nationalww2museum.org ; www.military.com ; www.nps.org ; www.washington.org ; www.nationalparks.org ; www.tripadvisor.com ; www.abmc.gov ; www.nationalmall.org ; www.nationalmallcoalition.org ; www.wwiimemorialfriends.org ; www.thoughtco.com ; www.politico.com ; www.historynet.com ; www.history.com ; www.latimes.com ; www.nytimes.com ; www.washingtonpost.com ; www.usatoday.com ; www.toledoblade.com ; www.sfgate.com ; www.c-span.org ; www.cnn.com ; www.pbs.org ; www.npr.org ; www.loc.gov ; www.alamy.com ; www.gettyimages.com ; www.www.pinterest.com ; www.google.com ; www.bing.com