ROANOKE TIMES 

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

DATE: MONDAY, May 31, 1993                   TAG: 9305310069
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: HOLIDAY 
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

GROUPS FIGHT PITCHED BATTLE FOR MEMORIALS

Black Revolutionary War soldiers. Female veterans. Survivors of a torpedoed World War II cruiser. A famed Asian-American combat unit.

Across the United States, groups by the dozens are battling the recession, political bickering, government red tape, fading memories and one another for a shrinking pool of dollars and prime public space to build war memorials.

Since the 1970s the government largely has gone out of the monument-funding business, leaving it to veterans groups to forage for monument money.

Most frequently, the target of the fund-raising drives is the people the memorials would commemorate: the 2.7 million U.S. veterans, including more than 230,000 in Orange County, Calif. The pitch: Give us some money or you won't be remembered.

The cost can be steep: The congressionally approved Korean and World War II memorials to be built in Washington each is expected to cost more than $15 million. Congress is expected to contribute $1 million for each project.

"It's terribly difficult - the competition for dollars from the private sector is fierce," said Col. William Ryan, spokesman for the American Battle Monuments Commission, which is coordinating efforts for the Korean War and World War II monuments.

The fight for the best spots can be ferocious. The most popular site is in Washington, around the Mall, home to, among others, the Lincoln Memorial and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Politics also intrudes. When the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was unveiled, many conservatives found the abstract design defeatist and unacceptable.

The Korean War Veterans Memorial has continued the controversy, with its depiction of a platoon of soldiers stalwartly walking along a path. Critics say it gives too upbeat a depiction of a war that most historians rate as a stalemate that took more than 54,000 U.S. lives.

Even when all the hurdles can be cleared, time is eating away at the ability to raise funds for major projects. The World War II Memorial fund-raising drive is only now getting under way. The target of much of the fund raising - the World War II veterans - is shrinking daily. 


 by CNB