DAV Magazine — 2016 AVDLM Book
American Veterans Disabled For Life Memorial The Experience
Granite Walls
Framing the Memorial on the western boundary is an inscribed wall of white granite from Bethel, Vermont— a material chosen as a reflection of the strength displayed by disabled veterans. On this wall, third-generation stone carver Nicholas Benson— who began his apprenticeship at age 15 at his family’s Newport, Rhode Island, carving atelier, The John Stevens Shop— hand-chiseled powerful quotes by two U.S. presidents/ generals: George Washington, with a statement from 1783, and Dwight D. Eisenhower, with words uttered in 1946 at the completion of World War II.
Reflecting Pool, Star Fountain And Flame
The Memorial’s physical and symbolic centerpiece is a star-shaped fountain, next to a triangular reflecting pool that looks out to the U.S. Capitol and serves as a strong focal point for the site. Both were constructed as monolithic forms of black granite. The pools were designed with infinity edges, so a thin, smooth layer of water flows continually over all of the sides. The water’s quiet flow, which shifts with the slightest breeze, is a reminder of how disabled veterans can overcome obstacles to find new meaning and purpose in their lives.
At the star fountain’s center, a ceremonial flame embodies the elemental forces of injury, loss and renewal, emerging from the water as a reminder of the hope that springs from perseverance in the face of adversity. “The fire has multiple positive associations— comfort, protection, camaraderie and community— but also reflects destruction and, through its constant motion, transformation,” says designer Michael Vergason.
Glass Panels
Along the southern edge of the Memorial are three glass walls, the “Voices of Veterans,” representing the strength and fragility of the human spirit. Forty-eight laminated panels of glass— in all its disclosure and transparency— are etched with quotations and photographs that represent disabled veterans and those who care for them. The voices reflect the full continuum of American military conflict and express timeless ideals of patriotism, dedication to service and the pain and devastation of war. The selections pay tribute to disabled veterans from all conflicts, past and present, and to those who suffer from invisible as well as physical injuries.
“We wanted to shed some light on their larger experience,” says Jerome Cloud of Cloud Gehshan Associates, the environmental graphic design firm that oversaw the selection and presentation of the narrative on the glass walls. The designers wished to represent that collective experience through the journey of disabled veterans. “We started to create this framework we were calling the four journey stages,” Cloud recalls. First was the call to duty: How did these veterans decide they wanted to serve their country? Second was the trauma of injury. Third, the challenge of healing—did they ever fully recover, physically and psychologically? And finally, the discovery of a new purpose. After this long journey, where do they find themselves in their lives?
Key to the selection of quotes and images was an attempt at creating a sense of universality. “We didn’t want any political reaction,” Cloud says. “We wanted a much more emotional, visceral reaction, with the fact that somebody who served in the Civil War had the same type of experience as someone who served in Vietnam. It’s remarkable, when you line all these cards up, how similar the journey started to feel from one individual to the next.”
Each panel comprises five layers of three-quarter-inch-thick, ultra-clear glass— the same kind used in the Apache helicopter and B-2 bomber— and four layers of lamination. The appearance of the panels changes constantly, based on season and time of day, cloudy or sunny conditions or high or low sunlight. The elements breathe life into the glass panels, ensuring that the experience of visiting the Memorial is never the same twice.
Bronze Sculptures
Standing adjacent to the glass panels are four cast bronze sculptural panels with reverse silhouettes by Washington, D.C.-based artist Larry Kirkland. The placement of the sculptures was carefully selected to mirror accompanying images on the glass panels. “When you look from the bronze side, the photographic images are framed by the silhouettes,” Kirkland explains.
The sculptures actively respond to changing light. At night, light passes through the cutouts, illuminating and animating the glass panels for an ethereal effect. “It changes minute to minute and throughout the year, depending on where the sun is in the sky,” Kirkland says. “It changes dramatically when there are puffy clouds that flow by, because the sunlight can be cut off and gradually come back on again. To me, it talks about how ephemeral life is and how changing it is.”
Bronze was selected for its longevity and its association with memorials; there are numerous bronze statues throughout Washington, D.C., and the members of the National Park Service are skilled at maintaining the material. Further, bronze enabled a tactility that resonates throughout the Memorial.
“When you see the bronzes up close, on the backside, the surface is quite worked, and the patina is quite rich, and they take on a tactile quality, and I wanted people to be able to touch it,” Kirkland says, adding that the deeply etched glass panels have a similar effect.
Together with the images and text in the glass panels, the silhouettes depict the central themes of the Memorial: call to duty and pride in service, trauma of injury, healing and renewal of purpose.
Landscaping
Tying the Memorial’s various components into a cohesive whole is landscaping by Michael Vergason Landscape Architects. Maidenhair trees, also known as ginkgo biloba, and pond cypress trees, enhanced by evergreen hedges and fragrant shrubs, form an urban grove around the central fountain. Both tree types are known for their adaptability and ability to survive under difficult conditions; ginkgo biloba in particular is associated with human health and memory—making the selections especially appropriate for the Memorial.
The ginkgo trees offer an additional emotional component: They turn a brilliant yellow color for a brief period each year, typically right around Veterans Day in November. The dramatic shift creates a spectacular show of golden light around the Memorial that reinforces the idea of cyclical change and vulnerability.
Military Service Seals
The Memorial is the first dedicated to individuals from all five branches of the U.S. military. Each branch—the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps and Navy—is represented by its service seal, cast in bronze and embedded in pavers at the tips of the five points of the Star Fountain.
The seals are especially poignant for the many veterans, both disabled and not, who visit the Memorial. “When it first opened, there was a guy that came in, and he walked around and knelt down and touched the Navy seal,” recalls design team member Larry Kirkland. “He was visibly moved by being there. So you knew that his service really meant something to him and that some of the people he served with had been injured. By observing that, to see how the Memorial affects the veterans— it’s like, as a team, we got it right.”
The Quotes: Voices Of Veterans
I have a purpose in life, and that's been to help other military families through some of what I had to go through. If I had to go through it myself in order to help others, I'm okay with that.
Roberto Barrera
I loved him for who he was in his heart. And he still had that. And I loved him for what he had in his mind. And he still had that.
Jayme Peters Bozik
I felt a special compassion for these young men with torn-up faces. The wounds one could see were often less severe than the psychological injuries they brought with them. My heart went out to each of them.
Martha Cameron
When you're young, you're invincible. You're immortal. I thought I'd come back. Perhaps I wouldn't, there was that thought, too, but I had this feeling that I would come back. Underneath that feeling, there was another, that maybe I wouldn't be quite the same, but I felt I'd make it back.
Michael A. Naranjo
There are life-threatening injuries to confront and surmount, lifechanging disabilities to meet and master, and life-shaping experiences to make peace with and understand. For every tragic story of a life unraveled by military battle, there are a dozen tales of individuals who have managed to triumph over the harrowing experiences of war and ruin.
Jesse Brown
The strongest ties between human beings are not cemented in safety, luxury, and comfort. It is the sharing together of the scanty covering, the insufficient shelter, drinking from the same cup, eating from the same plate, the dividing by a hungry soldier with a hungrier comrade the last morsel of meat or the remnant of a cracker; the binding up of each other’s wounds, the lending of courage from one heart to another: these are what create the strongest bonds between human beings.
Horace H. Shaw
My wife means everything to me, and she's also been my therapy. They got me to talk about it.
People didn't understand that it is so painful to discuss. As I'm talking to you right now, there are tears running down my face.
Since the war, I've been confined to a wheelchair and have tried to live a good life. However, I relive the war every day.
Dean Winters
In the end, what gets people through a physical or emotional crisis is not new technology or medication. Those things can help, of course. But it’s faith that gives you the strength to endure—faith that won’t allow you to give up; faith that manifests itself in a ferocious determination to take the next step—the one that everyone else says is impossible.
Bob Dole
We start by not thinking so much anymore about what you have lost. You must think about what you have left … and what you can do with it.
Dr. Hampar Kelikian
I shall recall with reverence those who fought beside me and died. And in that quiet, I shall recall with respect those who fought with me and were scarred by bullets, left limbless by bombs.
I shall recall with humility those who were stronger and braver than me.
And I shall recall—with celebration and joy—our nation's heritage of selfless sacrifice and commitment to the common good.
Billy E. Kirby
I don't care how prepared you are. When it actually happens, it's a different story.
Everybody was running around all over the place. Nobody knew what was happening. Nobody knew what to do next.
I felt so alone, watching what was happening. By this point, I knew I'd been hurt, but I just wanted to find someone from my company.
Felicia Weston
How is a life replaced—the companionship, nurturing, love and support of a husband and father.
We were totally unprepared for and were devastated by years of illness.
Joan McCarthy
It's possible for a man to lose half of his physical being and still become whole.
Before I lost my limbs I was only half a man. Now I've developed some humility. I can look at the average person and understand him, where before I looked only at myself.
Theodore Strong, Jr.
It's not what you've lost that counts, it's what you do with what's left.
Charlie McGonegal
In a way, I'm special, I thought. I'm a member of a unique group. It could be the end of the world for me, or it could be the beginning of a whole new life.
Harold Russell
In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.
José Narosky
I am always proud of my service. Yes, I wished things would have worked out a little better for me but I did come home alive and had a fairly successful life.
George Robert Sullivan
Framing the Memorial on the western boundary is an inscribed wall of white granite from Bethel, Vermont— a material chosen as a reflection of the strength displayed by disabled veterans. On this wall, third-generation stone carver Nicholas Benson— who began his apprenticeship at age 15 at his family’s Newport, Rhode Island, carving atelier, The John Stevens Shop— hand-chiseled powerful quotes by two U.S. presidents/ generals: George Washington, with a statement from 1783, and Dwight D. Eisenhower, with words uttered in 1946 at the completion of World War II.
Reflecting Pool, Star Fountain And Flame
The Memorial’s physical and symbolic centerpiece is a star-shaped fountain, next to a triangular reflecting pool that looks out to the U.S. Capitol and serves as a strong focal point for the site. Both were constructed as monolithic forms of black granite. The pools were designed with infinity edges, so a thin, smooth layer of water flows continually over all of the sides. The water’s quiet flow, which shifts with the slightest breeze, is a reminder of how disabled veterans can overcome obstacles to find new meaning and purpose in their lives.
At the star fountain’s center, a ceremonial flame embodies the elemental forces of injury, loss and renewal, emerging from the water as a reminder of the hope that springs from perseverance in the face of adversity. “The fire has multiple positive associations— comfort, protection, camaraderie and community— but also reflects destruction and, through its constant motion, transformation,” says designer Michael Vergason.
Glass Panels
Along the southern edge of the Memorial are three glass walls, the “Voices of Veterans,” representing the strength and fragility of the human spirit. Forty-eight laminated panels of glass— in all its disclosure and transparency— are etched with quotations and photographs that represent disabled veterans and those who care for them. The voices reflect the full continuum of American military conflict and express timeless ideals of patriotism, dedication to service and the pain and devastation of war. The selections pay tribute to disabled veterans from all conflicts, past and present, and to those who suffer from invisible as well as physical injuries.
“We wanted to shed some light on their larger experience,” says Jerome Cloud of Cloud Gehshan Associates, the environmental graphic design firm that oversaw the selection and presentation of the narrative on the glass walls. The designers wished to represent that collective experience through the journey of disabled veterans. “We started to create this framework we were calling the four journey stages,” Cloud recalls. First was the call to duty: How did these veterans decide they wanted to serve their country? Second was the trauma of injury. Third, the challenge of healing—did they ever fully recover, physically and psychologically? And finally, the discovery of a new purpose. After this long journey, where do they find themselves in their lives?
Key to the selection of quotes and images was an attempt at creating a sense of universality. “We didn’t want any political reaction,” Cloud says. “We wanted a much more emotional, visceral reaction, with the fact that somebody who served in the Civil War had the same type of experience as someone who served in Vietnam. It’s remarkable, when you line all these cards up, how similar the journey started to feel from one individual to the next.”
Each panel comprises five layers of three-quarter-inch-thick, ultra-clear glass— the same kind used in the Apache helicopter and B-2 bomber— and four layers of lamination. The appearance of the panels changes constantly, based on season and time of day, cloudy or sunny conditions or high or low sunlight. The elements breathe life into the glass panels, ensuring that the experience of visiting the Memorial is never the same twice.
Bronze Sculptures
Standing adjacent to the glass panels are four cast bronze sculptural panels with reverse silhouettes by Washington, D.C.-based artist Larry Kirkland. The placement of the sculptures was carefully selected to mirror accompanying images on the glass panels. “When you look from the bronze side, the photographic images are framed by the silhouettes,” Kirkland explains.
The sculptures actively respond to changing light. At night, light passes through the cutouts, illuminating and animating the glass panels for an ethereal effect. “It changes minute to minute and throughout the year, depending on where the sun is in the sky,” Kirkland says. “It changes dramatically when there are puffy clouds that flow by, because the sunlight can be cut off and gradually come back on again. To me, it talks about how ephemeral life is and how changing it is.”
Bronze was selected for its longevity and its association with memorials; there are numerous bronze statues throughout Washington, D.C., and the members of the National Park Service are skilled at maintaining the material. Further, bronze enabled a tactility that resonates throughout the Memorial.
“When you see the bronzes up close, on the backside, the surface is quite worked, and the patina is quite rich, and they take on a tactile quality, and I wanted people to be able to touch it,” Kirkland says, adding that the deeply etched glass panels have a similar effect.
Together with the images and text in the glass panels, the silhouettes depict the central themes of the Memorial: call to duty and pride in service, trauma of injury, healing and renewal of purpose.
Landscaping
Tying the Memorial’s various components into a cohesive whole is landscaping by Michael Vergason Landscape Architects. Maidenhair trees, also known as ginkgo biloba, and pond cypress trees, enhanced by evergreen hedges and fragrant shrubs, form an urban grove around the central fountain. Both tree types are known for their adaptability and ability to survive under difficult conditions; ginkgo biloba in particular is associated with human health and memory—making the selections especially appropriate for the Memorial.
The ginkgo trees offer an additional emotional component: They turn a brilliant yellow color for a brief period each year, typically right around Veterans Day in November. The dramatic shift creates a spectacular show of golden light around the Memorial that reinforces the idea of cyclical change and vulnerability.
Military Service Seals
The Memorial is the first dedicated to individuals from all five branches of the U.S. military. Each branch—the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps and Navy—is represented by its service seal, cast in bronze and embedded in pavers at the tips of the five points of the Star Fountain.
The seals are especially poignant for the many veterans, both disabled and not, who visit the Memorial. “When it first opened, there was a guy that came in, and he walked around and knelt down and touched the Navy seal,” recalls design team member Larry Kirkland. “He was visibly moved by being there. So you knew that his service really meant something to him and that some of the people he served with had been injured. By observing that, to see how the Memorial affects the veterans— it’s like, as a team, we got it right.”
The Quotes: Voices Of Veterans
I have a purpose in life, and that's been to help other military families through some of what I had to go through. If I had to go through it myself in order to help others, I'm okay with that.
Roberto Barrera
I loved him for who he was in his heart. And he still had that. And I loved him for what he had in his mind. And he still had that.
Jayme Peters Bozik
I felt a special compassion for these young men with torn-up faces. The wounds one could see were often less severe than the psychological injuries they brought with them. My heart went out to each of them.
Martha Cameron
When you're young, you're invincible. You're immortal. I thought I'd come back. Perhaps I wouldn't, there was that thought, too, but I had this feeling that I would come back. Underneath that feeling, there was another, that maybe I wouldn't be quite the same, but I felt I'd make it back.
Michael A. Naranjo
There are life-threatening injuries to confront and surmount, lifechanging disabilities to meet and master, and life-shaping experiences to make peace with and understand. For every tragic story of a life unraveled by military battle, there are a dozen tales of individuals who have managed to triumph over the harrowing experiences of war and ruin.
Jesse Brown
The strongest ties between human beings are not cemented in safety, luxury, and comfort. It is the sharing together of the scanty covering, the insufficient shelter, drinking from the same cup, eating from the same plate, the dividing by a hungry soldier with a hungrier comrade the last morsel of meat or the remnant of a cracker; the binding up of each other’s wounds, the lending of courage from one heart to another: these are what create the strongest bonds between human beings.
Horace H. Shaw
My wife means everything to me, and she's also been my therapy. They got me to talk about it.
People didn't understand that it is so painful to discuss. As I'm talking to you right now, there are tears running down my face.
Since the war, I've been confined to a wheelchair and have tried to live a good life. However, I relive the war every day.
Dean Winters
In the end, what gets people through a physical or emotional crisis is not new technology or medication. Those things can help, of course. But it’s faith that gives you the strength to endure—faith that won’t allow you to give up; faith that manifests itself in a ferocious determination to take the next step—the one that everyone else says is impossible.
Bob Dole
We start by not thinking so much anymore about what you have lost. You must think about what you have left … and what you can do with it.
Dr. Hampar Kelikian
I shall recall with reverence those who fought beside me and died. And in that quiet, I shall recall with respect those who fought with me and were scarred by bullets, left limbless by bombs.
I shall recall with humility those who were stronger and braver than me.
And I shall recall—with celebration and joy—our nation's heritage of selfless sacrifice and commitment to the common good.
Billy E. Kirby
I don't care how prepared you are. When it actually happens, it's a different story.
Everybody was running around all over the place. Nobody knew what was happening. Nobody knew what to do next.
I felt so alone, watching what was happening. By this point, I knew I'd been hurt, but I just wanted to find someone from my company.
Felicia Weston
How is a life replaced—the companionship, nurturing, love and support of a husband and father.
We were totally unprepared for and were devastated by years of illness.
Joan McCarthy
It's possible for a man to lose half of his physical being and still become whole.
Before I lost my limbs I was only half a man. Now I've developed some humility. I can look at the average person and understand him, where before I looked only at myself.
Theodore Strong, Jr.
It's not what you've lost that counts, it's what you do with what's left.
Charlie McGonegal
In a way, I'm special, I thought. I'm a member of a unique group. It could be the end of the world for me, or it could be the beginning of a whole new life.
Harold Russell
In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.
José Narosky
I am always proud of my service. Yes, I wished things would have worked out a little better for me but I did come home alive and had a fairly successful life.
George Robert Sullivan
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