Marine Corps War Memorial
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Visiting the Marine Corps War Memorial will be the most moving experience DC has to offer. Modeled after the famous Iwo Jima photograph, overlooking the nation’s capital, the memorial is sacred and quintessentially American.
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The United States Marine Corps War Memorial stands “in honor and in memory of the men of the United States Marine Corps who have given their lives to their country since November 10, 1775.” It is located in Arlington, Virginia on a 7.5-acre piece of land owned and upkept by the Department of the Interior. The memorial was built by Felix de Weldon from 1945 to 1954, just after the conclusion of World War II. The U.S. House of Congress commissioned de Weldon to create a memorial based off a famous photograph of soldiers at Iwo Jima. The statue itself depicts a scene from World War II, but those behind the memorial emphasize its purpose as a monument to all marines who have served the country.
The photograph the memorial is based on depicts a seminal moment during the war in the Pacific. The scene represents the morning of February 23, 1945, when 4th and 5th Marine Divisions invaded the Japanese island of Iwo Jima. The troops were sent to capture “Mount Suribachi” a location on Iwo Jima, which required a long, strenuous climb up treacherous terrain. That morning, the soldiers positioned at the bottom of the mountain looked up and saw a small American flag flying high atop Mount Suribachi. They rejoiced and knew the troops had succeeded. Later that afternoon, a second, larger flag was raised to replace the small one. Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal captured the raising of the large flag in the famous photograph that later one a Pulitzer Prize. De Weldon, who was then stationed within the US Navy, was so moved by the photograph that he decided to sculpt a model of it. He and architect Horace W. Peaslee then designed the memorial. They presented the proposal to Congress, but no funding was possible during the war. In 1947, a federal foundation was created in order to raise funds for this memorial. Shortly after, the memorial was approved by Congress and a commission for the memorial was given to De Weldon in 1951, after it was also approved by the Marine Corps League. The pieces were then cast in bronze and cleaned, finished, and chased. They were reassembled into about twelve pieces and brought back to D.C. by a three-truck convoy, weighing more than twenty tons. Once in D.C., they were welded together into the appropriate sculpture and treated with preservatives.
The statue portrays the soldiers in the exact positions they were in when the photograph was taken. Ira Hayes, Franklin Sousley, Rene Gagnon, Michael Strank, Harold Schultz, and John Bradley are among the soldiers pictured. Two of the soldiers are pictured carrying an M-1 rifle and a canteen of water. The whole memorial is 78 feet tall and the base is made of granite. Surrounding the granite base in a gold ring are the names and dates of every principal Marine Corps engagement since the founding. The entire statue cost $850,000 and was funded by private donations from marines, friends of the Marine Corps, and members of the navy. No public funds were utilized at all for this memorial.
De Weldon spent three years crafting the sculpture. He finished the statue in plaster, disassembled it, and sent it to Brooklyn, New York to be cast in bronze. Peaslee designed the base of the memorial to be made of black diabase granite from Sweden. He decided to include some inscriptions on the base as well. The “groundbreaking ceremony” for the memorial was held on February 19, 1954, exactly nine years after the Marines landed on Iwo Jima and symbolically, the Commandant of the Marine Corps General Lemuel Shepherd did the groundbreaking. An interesting fact I learned during my research was that the infamous flag-raising was also recorded in color as filmed by Marine Sergeant Bill Genaust, another cameraman. Genaust was sadly killed on March 4, 1945 by the Japanese after reportedly entering a cave on Iwo Jima. His footage was key in establishing that the second flag raising was not staged, but real.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower dedicated this memorial in a ceremony on November 10, 1954, which was the 179th anniversary of the Marine Corps. Vice President Richard Nixon, Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson, Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Anderson, and Assistant Secretary of the Interior Orme Lewis presided over the ceremony and remarks were made by Colonel J.W. Moreau, retired Marine Corps president and General Lemuel Shepherd who presented the monument to the people of the United States, among others. An American flag was raised up the memorial’s flagpole and Felix de Weldon spoke. Vise President Nixon gave the dedicatory address. The ceremony ended with the playing taps.
On June 12, 1961, President John F. Kennedy issued a proclamation that a flag of the United States should fly over the memorial 24 hours a day every day. The Marine Corps memorial is one of the few official sites where this flag flying is required. The American flag had only 48 starts on it at the time of the famous photograph after which the memorial is modeled, but the flag flown on it now depicts all 50 stars. This decision was made to emphasize the memorial’s role in commemorating the lives of all marines who have served, regardless of when they did.
In 2015, a philanthropist named David Rubenstein pledged more than $5 million to refurbish the memorial in honor of his father, a Marine veteran from World War II who had died two years prior. The $5.37 million donation to the National Park Foundation allowed for the cleaning and waxing of the statue, polishing of the black granite, regilding inscriptions, and repairing pavement, lighting, and part of the flagpole. This was the first full refurbishment of the memorial since its dedication in 1954. The renovation was finished in 2018. The Marine Barracks now uses this memorial as the location for their weekly “Sunset Parade.”
This memorial has always distinctly struck me. I vividly remember visiting it as a child and hearing my parents explain that the soldiers were hoisting up the American flag because they won as they fight for our country. The memorial is beautiful and jarring, thus particularly inspiring. It is also a fascinating example of how a memorial can serve multiple purposes. It can commemorate one event during one war and the heroism of a select few individuals while also commemorating an indefinite number of individuals in the present and in the future. Its location in Arlington, overlooking the nation’s capital, also adds to its moving quality. It is an epitome of the American perspective on war and heroism. We like tangible representations of heroism, like men gathering together to erect a large-enough American flag. The small one wasn’t visible enough so the troops put up a bigger one to show the world we’d won.IMG_8939 IMG_8940 IMG_8941 IMG_8942 IMG_8943 IMG_8944 IMG_8945 IMG_8946 IMG_8958 IMG_8960 IMG_8964 IMG_8971
Links for further reading:
https://washington.org/DC-guide-to/marine-corps-war-memorial
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/10/this-day-in-politics-nov-10-1954-973605
https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/06/29/hershel-williams-wwii-medal-honor-dead/IMG_8960