Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 12, 1994 TAG: 9411140068
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But if modern history is any indication, that may be easier said than done.
Recent efforts to build war memorials - such as the Vietnam veterans' memorial in Washington, D.C. - have sparked ugly rhetorical battles and bitter lawsuits between factions favoring modern architecture and others who favor more traditional designs.
Foundation members at Friday's announcement at Northside High School predicted that won't happen with the D-Day monument. But that doesn't mean there will be no disputes within the group on what the estimated $2million monument will look like.
"There will be good debate, I hope, within the foundation, over what the monument will consist of," said retired Gen. William Rosson, one of the foundation's board members. "But once that is completed, and all the coordination in the community is completed, I wouldn't anticipate further controversy."
Foundation Chairman and D-Day veteran Bob Slaughter said he expects to add at least 20 people to the foundation board, mostly representatives of Virginia towns and cities that have expressed interest in the monument.
He declined to reveal how much money the state-chartered organization now has in the bank, saying only that "it's very little."
The nonprofit foundation plans to open a bank account and accept contributions from individuals, local governments and organizations in France, Britain and Canada that have expressed support, he said.
Already, Bedford has promised $250,000 toward the monument. And Salem Mayor James Taliaferro has offered to kick in another quarter-million if matching proportional amounts are donated by other Roanoke Valley governments, Slaughter said after the announcement.
Under that scenario, local governments each would kick in $10 for each man, woman and child in their jurisdiction, Slaughter said.
Mayor David Bowers on Thursday said the city may have to re-evaluate its support for the project, but he believes City Council still wants to support it. Council had promised about $601,000 in real estate, improvements and maintenance if the foundation had chosen Roanoke for the monument.
Bedford, with a population of 3,200 in 1944, lost 23 of its 35 soldiers in Company A of the 116th Infantry Regiment in the Normandy invasion. Nineteen died in the invasion's first 15 minutes, and four more died in the following days. War historians say it was the largest per-capita loss from a single U.S. community in the invasion. All together, 91 men of the 200-soldier company died, and all but 15 were wounded.
The formal announcement that a 20-acre hillside behind Bedford Elementary School will be home to the monument took place against the backdrop of Veterans Day ceremonies, patriotic music and a speech on military preparedness by Rosson, who lives in Salem.
About 200 veterans listened, then applauded, as Rosson urged them to lobby Virginia members of Congress against further cutbacks in the nation's military forces.
Since 1990, the number of active-duty personnel in the nation's armed forces has fallen from 2.1million to 1.6million, "the lowest [level] since before [the attack on] Pearl Harbor in 1941," Rosson said.
Proposed additional cuts leave America "with the dubious distinction of ushering in [a] dangerous, high-risk decline of our national security posture ... We need to get our priorities straight," he said.
by CNB