Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, October 14, 1994                   TAG: 9410140068
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-16   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BEDFORD'S CALL IS COMPELLING

Roanoke offers three-quarters of an acre near historic Gainsboro, in the heart of the Hotel Roanoke redevelopment project - an easy walk from the soon-to-be renovated hotel, and accessible to City Market visitors, once the planned pedestrian bridge is built over the railroad tracks. That's what the site has going for it: accessibility.

It also has 134,000 cars going by it each day, on Williamson Road, Orange Avenue and Interstate 581. Which means more visitors, a good thing - but also no room for serene reflection amid the bustle of a city filled with traffic, largely heading elsewhere.

There is the question, too, of whether the adjoining Gainsboro neighborhood - already hemmed in by other public projects - would want the attraction.

More significant is the problem of space. A dignified monument surely could be built on the swatch of green space wedged between Williamson Road and Wells and Commonwealth avenues. But that would leave no space for future expansion or potential additional facilities, such as a library or exhibit hall.

And compare that urban landscape to the pastoral setting offered by the nearby city of Bedford: a choice of 20-acre sites, one with a view of the Peaks of Otter, in the midst of some of the loveliest rolling countryside to be found anywhere.

Retired general and foundation board member William Rosson envisions a memorial with an "atmosphere of reverence," and that is the critical expectation. It is ironic, perhaps, but appropriate that those who would honor fallen soldiers should do so in a place of tranquility.

And the sacrifice that Bedford made should not be forgotten. Nineteen men from the tiny city and surrounding county died in the 1944 D-Day assault on Omaha Beach, in the bloodiest fighting of the invasion that ultimately drove German occupation forces out of France and crushed the Third Reich.

Many others died, men from Roanoke, from throughout Western Virginia, from across the country. But that makes Bedford, with the heavy casualties taken by Company A, 116th Infantry, 29th Division, no less fitting a memorial site.

Attracting tourism is an important component of economic growth for the Roanoke Valley and the region. And attracting as many tourists as possible to a memorial that might teach younger generations of the sacrifices suffered to shape their world is an honorable goal. There would be no point in having a monument that would not be visited.

But a drive to Bedford makes for a most pleasant trip. A memorial there would be another attraction in an increasingly interesting regional tourist market, with emphasis on the regional. And the monument would be where it should be, where the memory means the most.