DATE: Thursday, November 20, 1997           TAG: 9711200003

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B11  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: OPINION 

SOURCE: Patrick Lackey

                                            LENGTH:   90 lines

ARMED FORCES MEMORIAL THEY WROTE, THEY DIED, NOW THEY'LL BE READ

On July 14, 1861, Civil War soldier Sullivan Ballou wrote his wife a letter of pure patriotism.

Sarah, my love for you is deathless. It seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence can break, and yet my love of country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly with all those chains to the battlefield.

A week later, he was slain.

That is one of 20 letters that have been cast in bronze and will seemingly be wind-strewn on the ground in a war memorial at the southwest corner of Town Point Park, near Nauticus. All the letters are from men and women killed in this nation's wars, some within hours of writing to loved ones. The oldest letter is dated Oct. 4, 1776; the newest, Jan. 31, 1991.

I'm a war vet, if you count troop clerks as soldiers, and this is my heartfelt prediction for the war memorial, which could be in place by Memorial Day:

The ground around the bronze letters will be watered with the tears of hundreds of thousands of visitors. The memorial's power to evoke emotions will be compared to the famous Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington. It will stand out among the countless war memorials across the nation.

As visitors leave the memorial, they'll see on the left side of the exit portal, We give you our deaths, and on the right side, Give them their meaning. The words are from modern American poet and World War I ambulance driver Archibald MacLeish.

Surely, no one's heart will be so cold and hard as to permit him to read the 20 letters without reflecting on them and feeling sadness for all who made the supreme sacrifice.

These good days, it is difficult to remember times when men killed each other in numbers as large as they could manage, when enemies' bodies were counted for public-relations purposes and soldiers argued over who killed whom. The letters will remind us that such times have existed and of course will come again. Peace is that time between wars.

The memorial here was designed by artist Maggie Smith and architect James Cutler. The pair has won numerous national awards.

Of the $750,000 cost of the memorial, $500,000 was provided in the will of Norfolk businessman John R. Burton Jr., who died in 1992. An Army captain during World War II, Burton later was known for the homecoming parties he arranged for Norfolk-based sailors and his habit of flying out to meet returning ships.

The remaining $250,000 for the memorial is being raised by the City of Norfolk and Greater Norfolk Corporation, a private organization dedicated to promoting economic growth in the city. The money must be raised rapidly if the memorial is to be done by this summer. Checks may be made out to City of Norfolk/Armed Forces Memorial, and mailed to Room 508, Norfolk City Hall, 810 Union St., Norfolk, Va. 23510.

Here are more letters.

In 1942, Meyer Davis Jr. wrote of sinking a submarine:

The fact that men die down below us doesn't really come into the mind, they just happened to have the misfortune to be inside the sub when it went down. Essentially, we are killing submarines, not men - if they want to have the bad judgment to be in the vicinity, that's their hard luck.

Perhaps the forgoing is only a rationalization of an uncomfortable feeling that today I helped kill some men that had wives and sweethearts, mothers and children. . . but I have to try to be quite ruthless or I won't be much use in this war.

Davis died a year later.

Frances Y. Slanger, a nurse, wrote on Oct. 20, 1944, the day before she was killed:

I couldn't help thinking how similar to a human being a fire is; if it is allowed to run down too low, and if there is a spark of life left in it, it can be nursed back. So can a human being. It is slow; it is gradual; it is done all the time in these field hospitals. . . . Somebody's brothers, somebody's fathers, and somebody's sons. . . .

Samuel Lloyd Jones, wrote on Oct. 17, 1951, three days before his death in Korea:

. . . International courts aren't impossible. Men must work out something along that line. Living from generation to generation of wars seems like mankind admitting it doesn't know how to be civilized. There must be a way.

George Olson wrote on Jan. 31, 1970, about a month before his death in Vietnam:

While we're over here we don't fit in your world but only in our own - and, conversely - you don't fit in ours and it's almost impossible for me to write any more. . . . You people can't really understand - and I sincerely hope you never can.

Yet this memorial, including Olson's letter, may help many begin to comprehend war. MEMO: Mr. Lackey is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. ILLUSTRATION: A BRONZED LETTER/file photo

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu