Pictures and text by Laurie Crofoot
The photographs on this page were taken by Laurie Crofoot in June 2007 and February 2008 or are taken from archives of American Legion Post 93, to whom I owe thanks for their helpful information on the Memorial Project.
Analysis: There are several facets of this Memorial that drew my interest. The first facet, and most interesting to me, is the idea that the designer is the oldest child of a man who is a true military hero. Mary of course grew up knowing the history of the scars her father carries on his face, as did most people in the area. She would have understood through him the meaning of the word "sacrifice", which may have played a part in why her design was chosen over others submitted. Mary Herman's original design is simple, somewhat resembling a tombstone although it is stated in a descriptive flyer that the Memorial is intended to "pay tribute to the dead and honor the survivors". Her inclusion of benches flanking the Memorial invite a viewer to sit to contemplate the second facet of the Memorial that I found interesting, the quote engraved upon it.
Lincoln County, the site of this Memorial, was named for Abraham Lincoln when it was created by the Wisconsin legislature in 1874. The quote "We take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion" is taken from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, which is in itself a memorial. The next line of the speech is "that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain", which is certainly a fitting phrase for the site of a Memorial.
Another very interesting aspect of this particular Memorial is how it, like many others, began as a memorial to one war, but later expanded to include other conflicts, some not considered "wars" in the traditional sense ,but all conflicts which have affected members of US armed services. This memorial was originally conceived around 1983 to honor Vietnam Veterans, who until the early 80's may have seemed somewhat neglected. At the end of the Vietnam conflict, the country seemed to want to forget rather than to memorialize it in any way, but this changed in 1982 with the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. The initial impetus to, and focus of, the Lincoln County Veterans' Memorial quickly expanded to include the First and Second World Wars, and the Korean War as well. The expansion of the Memorial twenty years later has included other wars which have or may have included participants from Lincoln County. These include the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, the Cold War, Lebanon Peacekeeping, Grenada, Panama, Desert Storm, Somalia, Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. We can only hope that our increased "devotion to their cause" may one day mean that there are no more conflicts to add to this Memorial.
Contact / Impressum:
Mark R. Hatlie (ViSdM)
Im Feuerhägle 1
D-72072 Tübingen
Germany
+49-151-20495350
www.hatlie.de
sitesofmemory @ hatlie.de