10 Places To Honor The Fallen On Memorial Day
Wars come and go, but the memory of those who died in them stays with us forever. No day is more poignant for the nation to remember those who gave their lives than Memorial Day.
Memorial Day began as an occasion to decorate the graves of those lost on both sides of the Civil War, even as that war raged on. After peace was made, John Logan, commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, designated May 30 “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land.” Known as Decoration Day in its early years, the holiday evolved into Memorial Day in the 20th century.
Though sometimes confused with Veterans Day — which honors all U.S. veterans, living and dead, on Nov. 11 — Memorial Day retains its meaning in ceremonies large and small nationwide, at cemeteries, parks and memorials.
The following are 10 places to honor the war dead of the United States on Memorial Day. Since war memorials number in the thousands, this is no complete list. These memorials are notable for their scope, design, historic importance or because they honor the dead from a conflict as nowhere else does. Some are not purely memorials to the dead, since they honor all participants in a given war, but they still have a strong association with memorializing the fallen.
Five sites are in greater Washington, D.C., with its concentration of memorials, and five are elsewhere.
Metro Washington, D.C.
ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY
Origin: June 15, 1864, as a military cemetery for Union war dead.
Designer: Various
Visitors: More than 3 million annually
Though not a memorial to war casualties itself, the 624-acre Arlington National Cemetery has a high concentration of memorials for those killed in war, besides being hallowed ground as a place where men and women who served their country can request interment. It is the resting place for about 400,000 service members and their families.
The most famed memorial to the dead is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a white marble sarcophagus patrolled by an honor guard 24 hours a day, with the following inscribed on the back: "Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God."
Other memorials at Arlington include those to World War I dead, chaplains, members of the Coast Guard, military nurses, Spanish-American War dead and the astronauts killed in both shuttle accidents.
MARINE CORPS WAR MEMORIAL
Dedicated: Nov. 10, 1954
Designers: Felix de Weldon and Horace W. Peaslee
Annual Visitors: 1.5 million (estimated)
The Marine Corps War Memorial depicts one of the most famous incidents of World War II, the raising of the U.S. flag on Mount Suribachi by Marines on the Pacific Island of Iwo Jima in early 1945. Many U.S. servicemen, including Marines, were killed or injured capturing the island from the Japanese.
The memorial's designers based it on a famed photograph of the flag raising by Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press. Though depicting a specific incident in the history of the Corps, the bronze memorial is dedicated to all Marines who have given their lives in defense of the United States since 1775.
VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL
Dedicated: Nov. 13, 1982
Designer: Maya Lin
Annual Visitors (2018): 4,719,148
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, widely known as The Wall, represented a remarkably nontraditional kind of memorial to war dead when it was unveiled in 1982.
The memorial is an angled wall of black marble, beneath ground level, and inscribed with the names of more than 58,000 American men and women who gave their lives or remain missing in Vietnam.
At first, the memorial received sharp criticism, but as people started to visit it in great numbers and ponder the rows and rows of names of the honored dead, it soon became embraced as a solemn monument to those who gave their lives in that divisive war.
KOREAN WAR VETERANS MEMORIAL
Dedicated: June 14, 1993
Designer: Cooper-Lecky Architects, overseeing collaboration between several designers
Annual Visitors (2018): 4,107,520
The Korean War Veterans Memorial commemorates the 5.8 million Americans who served during the three years of the Korean War in the early 1950s. A total of 36,574 Americans died in the war and 103,284 were wounded.
The memorial includes 19 statues depicting American servicemen at war in Korea, a mural wall of scenes from the war, a walkway with markers listing the other nations that contributed to the war effort, and a reflective pool that memorializes the U.S. killed, missing and taken prisoner in the conflict.
THE WORLD WAR II MEMORIAL
Dedicated: May 29, 2004
Designer: Friedrich St. Florian
Visitors (2018): 4,652,865
The World War II Memorial honors the 16 million who served in the U.S. armed forces from 1941 to 1945, including the more than 400,000 who gave their lives.
The memorial includes a complex of pillars representing U.S. states and territories, two monumental arches (one for each theater of war), a reflecting pool, and bas-relief sculptures depicting wartime scenes. The memorial's Freedom Wall includes 4,048 gold stars, each representing 100 Americans who died in the war.
Outside Washington, D.C.
GETTYSBURG NATIONAL MILITARY PARK
Dedicated: Preservation of the battlefield began soon after the fighting ended, with President Abraham Lincoln coming on Nov. 19, 1863, to dedicate a cemetery on the site. The federal government acquired the land in 1895, and the National Park Service administered it after 1933.
Designers: Various
Visitors: 903,000 during the first three quarters of 2017
In early July 1863, Union and Confederate soldiers fought a major battle near the small town of Gettysburg in southern Pennsylvania. More than 7,000 men on both sides died in the battle, with many more thousands wounded.
The modern Gettysburg National Military Park commemorates the battle, but it also includes the graves of many of the dead, as well as many memorials to specific units and individuals who served at Gettysburg, both Union and Confederate.
PRISON SHIP MARTYRS MONUMENT
Dedicated: Nov. 14, 1908
Designers: Adolph Alexander Weinman, sculptor; Stanford White, architect
The Prison Ship Martyrs Monument is a little-known but poignant memorial to patriots who died in British captivity during the Revolutionary War.
After the Battle of Long Island in 1776, the British held thousands of captives on prison ships anchored in Wallabout Bay. Eventually over 11,500 men and women died of overcrowding, starvation and disease aboard those ships.
The current monument, which was erected in Brooklyn in the early 20th century, includes a 100-foot-wide granite staircase and a 149-foot Doric column. It marks the site of a crypt where those who died in the prison ship were originally buried in a tomb near the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
NATIONAL MEMORIAL ARCH AT VALLEY FORGE NATIONAL HISTORIC PARK
Dedicated: June 19, 1917
Designer: Paul Philippe Cret
Visitors (2018 estimate): 1,881,362 (entire park)
The United States National Memorial Arch in Pennsylvania commemorates the arrival of Gen. George Washington and the Continental Army under his command into Valley Forge in 1777.
Though not specifically a memorial to the dead, it evokes the suffering of the Continental Army during the notoriously hard winter of 1777-78. More than 2,500 American soldiers died at Valley Forge by the end of that winter from starvation, disease, malnutrition and exposure.
NATIONAL WWI MUSEUM AND MEMORIAL
Dedicated: Nov. 11, 1926
Designer: Harold Van Buren Magonigle
Visitors (2018): 646,453
The current official U.S. memorial to those who fought and died in World War I is in Kansas City, Missouri. More than 116,000 Americans died in that war, with about 204,000 wounded.
In 1919, Kansas City leaders proposed building a monument to those who served in the Great War, and the people of the city donated the modern equivalent of $34M in 10 days to support its development.
Completed in 1926, the Liberty Memorial was restored in the early part of the 21st century and rededicated in 2006 as the National WWI Museum and Memorial, now including an 80K SF museum devoted to the war. The museum and memorial has been designated by Congress as the nation's official World War I Museum.
In Washington, D.C., work is underway — more than 100 years after the Armistice that ended the war — on a National World War I Memorial.
PEARL HARBOR NATIONAL MEMORIAL
Dedicated: Various locations were maintained by the U.S. Navy following the war, and established as the USS Arizona Memorial in 1980, before being redesignated as World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument in 2008. It was redesignated again on March 12, 2019, as Pearl Harbor National Memorial.
Designer: Alfred Preis
Visitors (2018): 1.8 million
On Dec. 7, 1941, a surprise air raid by the Japanese Imperial Navy cost the lives of 2,335 military personnel and 68 civilians at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Hawaii, with 1,177 killed aboard the battleship USS Arizona alone. The attack brought the United States into World War II.
The modern memorial was built over the wreck of the Arizona, which serves as a tomb for many of the servicemen killed that day. As of May 2019, the memorial is temporarily closed for repairs.
Tom Russo contributed reporting.
