ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, April 7, 1997 TAG: 9704070028
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BEDFORD
SOURCE: JOANNE POINDEXTER THE ROANOKE TIMES
MEMO: ***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on April 8, 1997.
The name of Richard Burrow, executive director of the National D-Day
Memorial Foundation, was spelled incorrectly in a Monday story on the
memorial.
Diners at the National Press Club on Tuesday will have lunch and be able to question a D-Day authority on the memorial planned for Bedford County.
The National D-Day Memorial planned for Bedford County will get shared billing with a New Orleans D-Day museum Tuesday in the same room where two former U.S. presidents announced their candidacies.
Stephen Ambrose, noted author and D-Day historian, will talk about the memorial and the museum during his hour-long talk and question-and-answer session at the National Press Club in Washington.
With the National Public Radio Network and C-SPAN taping the speech to broadcast it later, the $8 million memorial and education center will get its first national exposure since Congress designated Bedford as home for the national shrine in November.
This also marks the first time Ambrose, as chairman of the National Advisory Committee of the National D-Day Memorial Foundation, will speak publicly on the need for the memorial. He is heading the campaign to raise money to build the memorial adjacent to Virginia 122 and U.S. 460 in Bedford.
Ambrose's talk "is a huge opportunity for us on a national basis to inform the nation on the memorial and why it's important," said Richard Barrow, executive director of the National D-Day Memorial Foundation. "He's an important ally and having him as chairman is a wonderful thing for us. ... A vast number in the nation know nothing about the memorial and education center. We are going to do everything we can to take full advantage."
That includes distributing 300 information packets and architectural drawings to those who attend the luncheon. Eight D-Day veterans will attend the $27.50-a-plate luncheon as guests of Ambrose. A busload of local residents also will make the trip.
Roanoker Bob Slaughter, chairman of the National D-Day Memorial Foundation; Sen. John Warner, who introduced legislation to locate the memorial in Bedford, and Bedford County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Lucille Boggess, who lost brothers during the invasion, will be among those at the head table when Ambrose speaks.
Ambrose's book, ``D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II,'' is considered the definitive work on the invasion at Normandy.
He has just completed a second D-Day book, ``Citizen Soldiers,'' which describes the men on the day after the Normandy invasion and what happened to them in later years. The book will be published by Simon and Schuster on Veterans Day.
The memorial, Ambrose said in a telephone interview, is important because "we cannot forget. A people who fail to remember and honor their heroes are a people in trouble."
A group of Virginians rallied to have the memorial built in Bedford because the Virginia National Guard, the 116th Infantry Regiment of the 29th Division, was one of the two first assault regiment on Omaha Beach, scene of the bloodiest fighting on D-Day. The Virginia unit was the only National Guard contingent to land on D-Day.
Bedford had the largest per-capita loss from a single community in the invasion. Of 35 Bedford soldiers, 19 died in the invasion's first 15 minutes; four more died later in the day.
The memorial foundation has raised $2.1 million for the monument, which is to include a 10-acre memorial that replicates the scene Allied Forces faced on June 6, 1944, as well as visitors' facilities and an educational center that will serve as a national clearinghouse for materials and literature related to D-Day.
Ambrose, who was named chairman in November, also has been instrumental in establishing a museum in New Orleans, where the landing craft that transported the men to the shores of Normandy were built.
The National Press Club, a group of about 4,500 American and foreign journalists and newsmakers, sponsors about 70 luncheons annually. It was during luncheon talks that Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan announced presidential candidacies.
Stephen Ambrose's taped speech before the National Press Club will be broadcast at 7 p.m. Thursday on WVTF Public Radio-FM (89.1). As of Friday, C-SPAN had not decided when it would broadcast the speech.
LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: THE NATIONAL D-DAY MEMORIAL FOUNDATION Tuesday'sby CNBpresentation will include architect's renderings of the Bedford
D-Day memorial. color.