Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 6, 1994 TAG: 9406060019
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LON WAGNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A stiff breeze offset the heat.
The 29th Infantry band played "The Star-Spangled Banner" and then "Taps" to remember those who fought and died. More than 100 people sat and stood at Church and Second streets at Lee Plaza to remember the turning point of World War II.
But as fitting as the ceremony seemed, there was something missing - and everybody knew it. What was done Sunday - assembling a time capsule to remind people of D-Day - was not nearly as significant as what went undone.
"Meaningful though it is," said retired Gen. William Rosson, "a capsule is not what some had in mind to commemorate D-Day."
They had in mind a "significant memorial" in the Roanoke area to stand as a D-Day reminder for the country. Rosson, a Salem resident, said Roanoke and its surrounding localities could lay as much of a claim as any area to the monument because of the role the 116th Regiment of the 29th Infantry Division played in the invasion of Nazi-occupied France.
Rosson reminded those gathered that 20 men from Roanoke and 23 from Bedford died June 6, 1944, when the 116th Infantry led the attack at Omaha Beach in France. The 29th and the 1st divisions suffered 2,500 casualties that day.
In 1988, the state chartered the National D-Day Memorial Foundation to a Roanoke group pushing for a memorial. But the city balked at plans for a $10 million memorial on Mill Mountain, and other ideas also failed to draw support.
"The focus of today should not be on the capsule, as important as it is, but on the adoption of a plan for the monument," Rosson said.
Rosson pointed out that, "amazingly," there is no D-Day Memorial in the United States.
Despite Rosson's exhortation about the memorial, D-Day veteran Allen Levin and his wife, Agnes, thought future anniversaries of the June 6 invasion also would be marked without a monument.
"There should have been one today," Allen Levin said. "There just wasn't enough interest in the city administration."
But might all the interest with the 50th anniversary prompt some action?
"No, I don't think so," Agnes Levin said. "I'm not sure it's going to do any more than it's done in the past. I think they missed a real opportunity by not having something prior to the 50th anniversary of D-Day."
The organizers plan to bury the time capsule, which will be dug up on June 6, 2044, the 100th anniversary of D-Day. Maybe, by then, the capsule's contents can be unveiled at Roanoke's D-Day Memorial.
by CNB