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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

Monuments are not overbuilding

Memorial honors true American values

Much blood was shed during World War II -- 25 million peopled died, 400,000 of them American soldiers.\nThey died for their country, in defense of the sacred liberties we hold dear. And while these brave men died many years ago, their memories should live on. \nThat's what's intended with the controversial World War II Memorial on the National Mall.\nLong in discussion, it was approved Sept. 22 by the National Capital Planning Commission. \nWith everything on track, ground will be broken Nov. 11, Veterans Day, an appropriate stroke of symbolism.\nCritics complain the monument will spoil the majestic views of the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. With other memorials planned to commemorate Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Ronald Reagan, they worry that the National Mall will be cluttered up, deprived of its graceful aesthetic.\nEleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia's non-voting delegate to Congress, said the design would be "a disfiguration on the mall," denouncing the design as "an unspeakably confused set of half-baked notions."\nTo some extent, her concerns are warranted. The design is ambitious, as sprawling as the deserts of Arabia.\nThe memorial will sit at the far end of the Reflecting Pool that stretches away from the Lincoln Memorial. It will feature 56 pillars representing the United States and territories and two 41-foot-high arches on the northern and southern ends representing the battles on the Atlantic and the Pacific. The western side will have a wall bearing 4,000 gold stars remembering the dead. Two fountains will send jets of water twice as high as the pillars.\nBut a tribute of such scale is fitting. \nIt's not simply a matter of honoring those who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. It's remembering why the war was fought in the first place -- the principle the fallen soldiers sought to uphold.\n"This memorial is not for us," said Bob Dole, the former Kansas senator and war hero, in a testimony on the House floor. "It is to remind future generations what liberty is all about."\nIn a free country, we're allowed such luxuries as concern over aesthetics. As Dole put it, that's what the war was all about.

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