Last Friday, President Trump, while at Camp David, signed into law the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Act, which allows for the construction of a war memorial monument on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
The Global War on Terrorism monument will be “a tangible symbol of the sacrifices made by fallen U.S. service members and their families while they were supporting the Global War on Terror,” according to the website gwotmemorialfoundation.org.
The Global War on Terror (GWOT) had its beginnings in October, 2001, in the northern mountains of Afghanistan shortly after the World Trade Center towers in New York City were attacked and destroyed on September 11, 2001.
For 16 years, longer than any other U.S. conflict, American service personnel have been fighting the GWOT all over the world. The GWOT War Memorial has a hopeful 2024 completion date and the cost to build this yet-to-be designed monument is estimated at $25-$35 million.
The timing for the GWOT Memorial Act legislation to become law is quite interesting to say the least, given all the recent tumult over some other war monuments.
This past week, we’ve seen some terrible, hateful acts of violence because of Confederate war memorial monuments which are displayed on public property. At some point in history, a government body and a majority of the local population thought the installation of those monuments was the right thing to do. It is now up to those local government bodies to have public hearings to listen to the local people before they determine the fate of those war memorial monuments.
The fate of a town square statue should never be determined by an anger fueled mob with a 25-foot yellow tow-strap. Right now, or at least at the time this was written, the ire of the mobs is directed toward busts and statues of rebel generals whereever they may be.
Is the removal of Confederate general statues where all of this ends? Is this the point where the offended are going to be satisfied? If they’re not satisfied ending with the Civil War time period, it’s not too difficult to imagine this continuing back further in time to our colonial leaders, because many of them owned human property, using the verbiage of the day.
When the authors and signers of our Constitution come into question, then the bedrock foundation of our country itself may be thought invalid by some. Many of our first presidents, who are memorialized in stone all over our Nation’s Capital, will be on the list to have their statues removed.
