Thoughts While Visiting the U.S. National World War I Memorial

The other day I went and stood in front of the new section of the World War I memorial in Washington, DC and looked at it. Memorials are meant to make you feel something. I felt nothing. I felt nothing when I looked at the figures. So I looked at the equipment. I looked at the uniforms. I looked at the faces. I looked at the setting. I still felt nothing. I stepped back and looked at it holistically. Then I went up close and looked at each detail bit by bit, and then I finally felt something. I felt anger.

I felt incredibly angry at those who thought that this was an homage to the World War I generation, at the people who believed that these figures and the way that they were cast symbolize how a nation felt after a massive bloodletting on a scale which we have yet to truly comprehend. As if this could provide meaning for one of the most misunderstood wars in U.S. history. And as if this could bring Americans closer to the silent WWI generation.

Memorials are tricky things because they are supposed to tell us something about ourselves and in the process we are supposed to see part of ourselves in that memorial. Every monument is meant to make us feel something. It might be sadness. It might be reverence. It might be that all you’re supposed to feel is just anything at all. Anger is probably not what those who created this monument meant to evoke, but it is what they intended to evoke that makes me so angry.

The figures on the memorial do not depict the American actors of World War I; they depict an idealized bastardization of memory. They are all heroic. They are all energetic. They are all useful. They are all manly – even the women are manly. Everyone is their best self. No one is afraid. No one lacks the courage to go forward. Everyone goes forward together, even those who were not allowed to go together because of race and gender. If we want to be truly honest, we need to address the problems inherent in memorialization that literally whitewashes our shortcomings as a nation. On the monument, Black and White soldiers fight next to each other – they walk arm and arm to war, something they were literally not permitted to do by the United States government. In short, it is an image of a generation that did not exist. Were World War I veterans to come back and look at this monument, the doughboys would not see themselves there.

Comparing the World War I memorial to those war memorials already on the Mall creates an interesting problem set. The Vietnam memorial stands on its own: unique, stark and tragic, somber and powerful. Across the reflecting pool, the figures of the GIs on patrol for the Korean conflict memorial are haunting and somehow otherworldly, but allow us to feel something human in their faces. There is uncertainty. There is courage. There is humanity. Then, of course, there is the World War II memorial. A monstrosity of marble and iron and water so large that it doesn’t really make an impact on you, which I suppose is a message in and of itself.

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