Confidential Congress Approved the nations First Military memorial which celebrates brigadier montgomery. Across776, communities the United States have built solemn poignant tributes to our solars and sailors, marines and airmen, nurses and all the people helping back home. Lets rumored that without a supportive and helpful homefront no military campaign succeeds. As we gather for this announcement it is important to note that we are all in debt to each and every one of them. Wartoo long, one specific has been left out of our national consciousness. Today we take a great step thatrd in righting wrong. Today we announce about what team will be chosen to move forward and work with all our stakeholders to join the National World war i memorial and hersheypark. Some of our friends in congress who have been tireless in shepherding our cause. I also want to recognize some key partners. The world war i museum in kansas ofy and a founding sponsor the museum and library in chicago. They have been indispensable and we look forward to the next years with those two inspiring institutions. I just want to mention the Military Museum and library has been very important by providing matching funds for us. And retired general Barry Mccaffrey has been such a strong supporter of us, but he cannot support us due to a death in the family. Now, why this . Why us . Why a memorial. Some of our speakers will answer those questions better than i, but allow me to hit the high notes. On the domestic front, much of how this country is organized socially, politically, and economically is due to world war i. Most of the 20th centurys seismic social changes, from the to incredible innovations in medicine, technology, manufacturing, and more all of that is also due to world war i. It is not until world war i that the United States started to see it self is a positive agent of change in the world. Any new show and within minutes you can find a story that can be traced directly back to world war i. Im talking about todays top hotspots. Boundaries of the middle east, many of which are the source of so much suffering and violence. These are products of the great war. To be more specific, a rock and syria are products of the war. The pico line is still debated. Most people here do not know what that is, but let me tell you they remember. They remember in the middle east what that line is. The news we see on in the middle east remember what that line is. The news we see on the ukraine stems from world war i. Americans know. Celebrateuld know and 198,000 texans who served in world war i. The 400,000 new yorkers. The 320,000 pennsylvanians. The 200,000 ohioans. Service andry little tribute paid here in the Nations Capital. Many of our commissioners are veterans. One of them phrases it like this, how can we turn to a young person thinking of joining the military and be honest in telling him or her that their service will always be remembered . When we have a whole generation who suffered worse casualties than vietnam and the korean war combined, yet, they have no representation among the great icons of our Nations Capital. If we come together and coordinate a sustained National Tribute to those who served in world war i by building this memorial and restoring world war country,ls across the then we can turn to that country and be honest in telling them that their service matters. That it will always be remembered. ,n the eve of this centennial we must embrace this moment to recognize the world war i generation. All of us can restore their legacy and install them in places of honor that are rightfully theirs. Those who served in the 20th centurys other great conflicts. This is why we are here today and so thrilled that so many of you could join us. To speak further, please join me in welcoming sandra purging who serves as one of our senior advisers. Ladies and derailment, Sandy Pershing ladies and gentlemen, Sandy Pershings. Honored to bery here with all of you today. It is very important for me and my family, as well as our country, as we start to Work Together to honor the almost 5 billion americans who served during world war i. Pershing,sband, jack was alive, he felt strongly that there should have been a memorial for all who served in every capacity. Park, butl had a nice he was all by himself. Nobody ever memorialized the people who fought so hard and many who were dead and maimed. Start to are going to restore the honor that has been so long in coming. My husbands grandfather was a very special man. His career spanned from cuba to the philippines to the border skirmishes with poncho villa and he was cited for bravery and gallantry. There were many generals who couldve been tapped for the assignments that he had. But president s like teddy ,oosevelt and Woodrow Wilson two president s coming from different parties felt that pershing was the man. Europe brokeip in open a deadly stalemate. Having come up through the ranks as he did, he was a soldiers general. He believed the general scott too much of the attention and during and after wars it was always at the expense of the or theymen or the navy marines. Designilled that the chosen will depict people from all walks of life. Fromree required something everyone and our modern America Needs to learn how broad and diverse our nations involvement in the war was. General pershing valued deeply the service of all africanamericans, women and countless immigrants who wore the countrys uniform. The volunteer ambulance drivers, the support staff, the nurses im sorry my voice is gone. The same sense of service and National Pride needs to be brought to bear. I thank you all for listening to me and im going to introduce congressman Emanuel Cleaver. [applause] good afternoon. Became mayor of kansas city. Survey of things around our community that i thought needed to be addressed. One of them was the Liberty Memorial which i had read about and had conversations about. Not because it was known at the time in the 1990s as some majestic memorial but because of what had happened around it. It had become a crime infested area and had a number of murders committed on the grounds. Act on the morning of mayor, was elected to appoint a man by the name of bobby gates. I appointed to him and said the him, i what the flames restored on the Liberty Memorial. Flame sounds better and we use that for tourists. The first accomplishment as mayor. But it did little to restore the Liberty Memorial which was in decay. Then there was this onslaught of and ollieicism of me gates is africanamerican by africanamerican leaders in the community. They were very angry over the fact that africanamerican men had been excluded from battles in world war i because it was the belief that they were cowards and did not possess the skills to fight. The things that you heard or read about. So with all of that pressure on us, we decided to push on for a number of reasons. Is important for us to have monuments and memorials said that people will never forget, not only the history of that war but the hell of that war. It is something that we need to respect andesents remembrance. That is exactly where i continued to move. Having had the opportunity to travel abroad, particularly in the middle east area, i have become somewhat of architecturally sensitive. And realized that architecture spoke to the people of that era. It said something about them and it preserved something about them for generations to come. So there is a degree of Architectural Heritage involved with monuments and memorials. And that is where i wanted to go. Human beings do not always river days, but we do remember events. Occasions. Ber this was an opportunity to make sure that we preserved in memory of an occasion the first world war. In the we convert those occasions in two memories. When i decided that we were going to push ahead in the face criticism, we were able to get a court are sent sales tax, we were able to restore the Liberty Memorial, and we were also able to build a something that people everywhere need to see because of what has preserved for years and years to come. Centennial ofthe world war i as a labor of love for me since i was elected mayor. When i was elected to congress, i decided that this would give me an opportunity to do something that would take the Liberty Memorial to a new level. So i began to work with the congressman from the border state of kansas. Friends are very good from different Political Parties but we communicate with each other except when ku plays m you. So our relationship was mostly healthy. It remains that way and will remain that way forever. Kevin and ted of poe. Thatleanor Holmes Norton we thought it was good to try to establish the National Memorial to honor world war i and create a commission tasked with commemorating the war throughout the United States. Successfullygress delivered a bill that established the world war i Centennial Commission and many of those commissions are here today. Now, we have turned our sites on the establishment of a National Memorial in our Nations Capital. Let me start by thanking the world war i Centennial Commission for their hard work and for putting together this design competition. It has been a pleasure working alongside them. And i honor the veterans of world war i reaching todays announcement took several years. Severalnegotiations, rewrites of legislation and singlemindedness by all involved for us to get to where we are. As you know, congress doesnt move swiftly and sometimes it does not move at all. But we were able to get movement in congress and we had energetic support from a number of people in congress including both the previous speaker of the house and john boehner who never pause in the support that came from pelosi. Opportunity to get to this point and i think there is a high level of excitement to be here. sring Union Station existence, the thirdlargest Union Station in the world in my home district of kansas city, it became a focal point in world war i where train traffic peaked with 79,000 trains passing through Union Station, including 271 trains in one day, perhaps it was the witnessing of americans traveling to the east war, to be deployed to the the prop to the citizens of , to building a memorial, lest the ages forget. It became a world event as the five military leaders of world war i joint Calvin Coolidge at the dedication in 1921. This is the only time in history that the allied leaders publicly joined together and honored those who have served and died in world war i. Nobody knew at that time that a future president of the United States was in attendance, terrys and. Harry s truman. Me, i you can stay with get to washington, and elected to congress, and i discover that harry truman is the only president who was the memorialized in the capital. So i am thinking that something has gone terribly wrong. We have to get harry truman in the capital. Now we are working on that process. But we are also trying to make who that the president served in world war i, which connected all of this together receive the proper attention. We are working on both of those in this is the realization of bringing all of that together at one time. The hope for peace began to ite after the war had ended, became apparent that this would be the last war. It would be the children of world war i veterans who became the greatest generation because they were called to fight another war world war ii. And thrilled to be here with some excitement and waiting for the unveiling of the design. I would like to present the person who pushed and pushed. Without his push, i am not so sure that we would be here today. That is Edward Fountain of virginia. Thank you congressman cleaver, i appreciate that very much. The commission is very proud to have congressman Emanuel Cleaver as our most ardent champion, along with his home state senators Claire Mccaskill and senator blunt, as well as congressman poe from texas and other others and many others. The commission was created by congress in january 2013, and in one of our first meetings two years ago, we under took the establishment of a National World war i memorial in the Nations Capital. And we brought that legislation we have been marching as rapidly as we can done that road. Today to announce the select and Design Concept for the memorial. I will talk a bit more about that in a moment. The question is why a war memorial, why one now, wasnt the war 100 years ago, arent those veterans gone . This is a fairly unique project. The memorials we had in korea and vietnam were all built with the strong leadership and support of veterans of those wars while those generations were still with us. Before 1982, we did not think in terms of national war memorials. Washington of course abounds with circles, squares, and parks honoring military litter honoringrom military leaders from conflicts throughout our history. The focus is on the leaders, not the soldiers. There is in this country a proud tradition of local memorials from the civil war to world war i. Those memorials are very much hidden in plain sight. People drive by on their daily business and pay little regard to. This was conceived as a memorial to all the nations veterans and we are proud to have that as a cone National Memorial coNational Memorial. Beginning with the vietnam memorial, that was our First National war memorial in washington and we have been working backward. And ind korea in 1995, 2000, world war ii. The primary mission of our commission is education. Thatuched on the role world war i played on the history of this nation and the very act of establishing a National Memorial will raise awareness of the centennial we are currently in and inspire americans to learn more about world war i and how it shapes the world we live in today. Our hope and expectation is that a National Memorial will inspire people. It has always been my thought that some High School Kid would come to washington on a class trip and go to a world war i memorial and say, if there was a world war ii, there must have been a world war i. Maybe that is what that memorial bridge, auditorium, spark or bridge is all about. I will take a closer look at it. That is the educational purpose and the second is commemorative. Simply put the Commission View is that our soldiers, marines and sailors and for the first time a leaders who fought and died in world war i did so with a same courage and tenacity and to sacrifice shown by the veterans of other wars that have a place on the National Mall. Ofy withstood the inferno artillery barrage is, went down to the bottom of the sea in their ships, fell from the sky in burning wreckage of airplanes and charged out in trenches across ocean fields and into woods and up hills the enemy had spent years fortifying. They did so in greater numbers than other wars. 4. 7 million american men and women went to war, 116,000 never returned. Measured against thes population, that would be the goinglent of 15 million to serve today and 360,000 fatalities. In vietnam we lost 47,000 men in combat in about eight years of fighting. And world war i we lost 53000 and six months. In 16week period, in a major battle that ended the war we lost him as his many men in that six weeks as we did in three years in the korean war. The casualty rate for u. S. Troops in one or one was half again as high as world war ii. And one monthen than we have in 14 years of the war on terror. Such service and sacrifice at such a scale must be remembered. With memorials in the Nations Capital not giving similar recognition to veterans of world war i would send a message that their service and sacrifice was valued less, which would be an injustice. With that mention in my, the support received from congress, authorization to establish a National World war i memorial in person park in pennsylvania avenue in front of the Willard Hotel one block from the white house. It does lead to the obvious question, why not the National Mall. It decrees that the National Mall is a substantially completed work of civic art and that there shall that is there shall be no new memorials, monuments or museums on the wall. If there were to ever be an exception to that law i would argue it should be for world war i but the commission decided it would be inappropriate to seek an exemption to a standing law so it turned to what we felt was the next best place, pershing placehich has pride and in the great diagonal connecting the capital to the white house and the most symbolically important avenue in the country. It is two blocks from the mall with substantial foot traffic along pennsylvania avenue and 15th street and is already the site of a memorial to general pershing. With the site chosen we turned