An American doughboy from the First Division throws a hand grenade in battle during World War I along the Western Front in France on March 15, 1918.

100 Years After WWI, The National Memorial In Washington Remains Unfinished. Here’s Why.

By Jeff Schogol
via the Task and Purpose web site

Nov. 11 marks the 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I, but the national monument in Washington, D.C., that Congress authorized in 2014 is still just an artist’s concept that still needs money to become a reality.

The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts approved fundraising for the a national World War I monument last year, said Dan Dayton, executive director of The United States World War I Centennial Commission. So far, donors have pledged about half of the $42 million for its construction, which is expected to be completed in November 2021 – 100 years after the opening of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, he said.

“It’s not easy, but it’s getting there nicely,” Dayton told Task & Purpose.

The First World War launched America’s entry on to the world stage as a military and financial power; it lit the fuze that blew for World War II; and it fractured the world, leaving conflicts that persist to this day, including the turmoil in the Middle East. And in many ways, it never really ended: the Sykes–Picot Agreement of 1916 between the British and French turned Syria and Iraq into sectarian time bombs.

But the quest to honor the more than 2 million Doughboys who went “over there” faces an a more existential challenge than mere fundraising: While World War II is revered in the United States, the First World War is mostly forgotten in the national consciousness. When Frank Buckles, the last American World War I veteran, died in 2011, lawmakers refused to let him lie in state at the U.S. Capitol.

Read the entire article on the Task and Purpose web site here:

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