Garrison Keillor can kiss my pasty white ass...Rolling Thunder is pretty cool in my book.

The sad thing about this memorial is it doesn't have any cohesive message to convey to those who visit. A bunch of quotes, some pillars and water features. The only thing that truly memorializes those who served in WWII are the stars along the back wall which still don't do much justice. I went back to visit my grandfather (who served in the Pacific) after it first opened and showed him some pictures he was truly unimpressed.

I'm not sure what the Commission on Fine Arts is thinking when they approve these memorials but this one just doesn't inspire or do that entire generation of Americans any justice.

The new MLK monument is going to be even worse. It makes him look like Lenin.

I've always found it ironic that the monument to our WWII vets wouldn't look out of place in Mussolini's Rome.

Having said that, lots of people do seem to love it - of course, I wonder how much of their love has to do with personal connections to parents or grandparents who served in WWII. Will the monument still speak to people in 50 years?

I kinda agree that it does look a little fascist, and its scale is a bit big, but at night I think it is pretty spectacular. I def think it will hold up over time. Regarding RT...All good, they add a little something different to stodgy DC conservatism.

The stars are the best part as is the Kilroy was here carving. I might like it more if people didn't treat it like a water park. What is up with tourists constantly wading in the pool? Yes, it gets hot here in the summer. Yes, that water looks mighty inviting but it's a freaking memorial people stay the hell out of the water!

I don't the architectural massiveness of it, but I've gotten used to the memorial. But I agree it's hard to get any emotional reaction from it like one gets from the Vietnam Memorial or the Lincoln Memorial.

I favor the neglected DC WWI Vet memorial off to the side of the WWII memorial which no one remembers if only because no one remembers it.

I don't know about you, but I can't stop hearing about how forgotten the DC WWI vet memorial is. It must be the most talked about "forgotten" memorial in town.

I wonder how much of their love has to do with personal connections to parents or grandparents who served in WWII. Will the monument still speak to people in 50 years?

I took my grandmother to see it after my grandfather, a former paratrooper, passed away. I'm firmly in the "I hate it" camp, but when she found the plate that has the paratrooper on it and just stood there, rubbing one of the paratroopers, it killed me. I can hardly write about it now.

That being said, I despise most of the memorial, liking only the relief plates.

The memorial's eagles are too reminiscent of the Nazi ones on their wreaths designed by Albert Speer. Its arches and pillars look like the could be in his redesign for Berlin, Germania (as shown in the middle of the lower picture).

I don't know about you, but I can't stop hearing about how forgotten the DC WWI vet memorial is. It must be the most talked about "forgotten" memorial in town.

I think the "forgotten" adjective describes the National Park Service, not the public. If you've been by it, the DC WWI memorial is overgrown with brush, dirty, and in need of some proper signage.

flapjack, agreed. It's unbelievable how people behave there. It may actually be the memorial's biggest design flaw: putting in a large pool of water and expecting fuckwit tourists not to frolic in it like a bunch of goddamned mallards.

I think they keep adding more of those pathetic little signs begging visitors not to wade, but what they really need a few hundred volts of electricity coursing through the pool.

The Salon piece included this odious passage.

"If anyone cared about the war dead, they could go read David Halberstam's "The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War" or Stephen Ambrose's "Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army From the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944, to May 7, 1945" or any of a hundred other books, and they would get a vision of what it was like to face death for your country, but the bikers riding in formation are more interested in being seen than in learning anything. They are grown men playing soldier, making a great hullaballoo without exposing themselves to danger, other than getting drunk and falling off a bike."

A little research concerning the identities of the motorcyclists and the purpose of the ride might have prvented Garrison from trivializing the service of the war vets who rode as well as the reasons for the event.

"The Lincoln has more do to with coming to terms with the Spanish American War than Lincoln himself."

Huh. I always just thought it was a statue of Zeus, myself.

I like the WWII memorial, because it is so evocative of the fascist-y take on neoclassicism. That makes it, to my brainz, evocative of the conflict it represents. At least they didn't try to put 400,000 names on it, like every other memorial since the Vietnam Memorial was built.

Hmm, that came out bitchy. True to form!

I like the WWII Memorial. It has always looked to me like an amphitheater, so it strikes me as a place for people to gather and share stories, memories, etc. As opposed to the other memorials, where visitors are encouraged to stand in reverent silence and read the wisdom carved in stone. For Lincoln and Jefferson, that works great. It just feels appropriate to me to that the WWII Memorial advocates dialog rather than lecture.

"At least they didn't try to put 400,000 names on it, like every other memorial since the Vietnam Memorial was built."

I agree that this is a somewhat unfortunate byproduct of the Vietnam Memorial, which has been taken to the extreme by such train-wrecks as the Oklahoma City bombing memorial (in other words, the need to acknowledge each and every victim, regardless of the aesthetical value)

However, for what it's worth you can go into just about any small town in the country and find a war memorial that lists each victim. So it's not really a new phenomenom, it's just one that taken too far results in a memorial to a bunch of specific people (a virtual cemetery), rather than a unifying event.

And another thing: The only true American memorial to WWII would be a committed foreign policy that worked to end genocide and the causes of genocide.

It's not rocket science people.

"The Lincoln has more do to with coming to terms with the Spanish American War than Lincoln himself."

yes - please explain, without paraphrasing the washington post magazine, please. such a ridiculous theory.

Growing up here I often had wondered why there was no WWII memorial. It was way overdue when finally built. Too bad though, this one was not worth waiting for.

But I think the most interesting thing behind the memorial is that it was designed by an Austrian born architect who later became an American citizen. As i recall Mies van der Rohe was first a commissioned architect responsible for much of the neo-classic "fascist" architecture we are all familiar with in nazi germany and eastern Europe. I always thought that this was not a monument to WWII but to Mies.

The WWII Monolithorium looks monstrous today, but will take on a look of true grandeur in a few years, as the National Mall is submerged under the waters of the Potomac.

Perhaps people think it looks like something the Nazi's would have built because the architect in an Austrian who "says" he supposed the Allies during the war. Maybe it's because the parent company of the company that built the thing had to pay reparations for using concentration camp slave labor during World War Two. The planning board was led around by the National Park Service employee who seemed hellbent on getting the thing done as is as quickly as he could in the name of doing so before "more of those old soldiers died."

To have built this monument on the sacred ground between the Lincoln and Washington memorials was in itself the ultimate betrayal of the nation's trust.

I never realized its beauty until I spent a few hours there on Veterans' Day. I probably talked to at least 50 WWII vets that day, and ugly was the last word any of them would have used to describe the memorial. After spending time with these vets, my quibbles with the design were easily forgotten.

As for those 56 pillars that "don't mean anything", I can guarantee they mean something to those who served. Time and again, eyes brightened and shoulders straightened as veterans found their respective pillars. Some merely wanted a picture of it, others stood by their pillars for nearly a half hour, shaking the hands of everyone that came their way.

If you'd like a similar experience, please check out Honor Flight at www.honorflight.org. They organize free flights to DC and tours of the memorial for WWII and terminally ill vets.

I like the WWII Memorial; it's my favorite on the mall. I have a couple of WWII vets in my family as well, so maybe I'm biased.

When you're in the middle of that memorial, by the fountain, you can't really turn in any direction and not see part of it. Which really emphasizes the size of the conflict - it was, truly, a "world war." Our armed forces were involved in many countries at the time, fighting for human liberty and freedom.

That every state and territory of ours at the time has an 'equal size' monument is significant in that despite our "individual" states, we stood united as a country in the endeavor. It didn't matter if only five people served from a territory to thousands from a state, the point is that we were all equal in our sacrifice to protect the world from tyranny, fascism and genocide.

That the state 'pillars' surround the pool shows that we all stood together to protect peace. I don't mind tourists frolicking in the water; I think that's why it's there, to emphasize that peace protected by our national sacrifice in the war.

I've spent many hours at the memorial contemplating it and what it means and assimilating that with my grandfathers' stories. (One served in the Pacific theater, one in the European.) And yeah, I think in 50 years it will still tell the same story to our next generation - provided they know how to crack open a book by then...

if you think this thing is bad, wait until they roll out the War on Terror Memorial in another 50 years. it'll probably be a solid gold Sarlaac pit covered in diamonds with a fountain that pumps widow and orphan tears. but at least the snack vendors will serve only the finest dew picked iraqui baby frogs, lightly killed, sealed in quintuple smooth chocolate and lovingly coated in glucose.

hell, who are we kidding? we'll STILL be fighting this stupid war 50 years from now. or we'll have racheted it up to a War on Danger, where all children are sealed in lifesize Socker Boppers.

So ridiculous, I'm not even sure where to start...

How about with the "It looks like a Nazi/Fascist Memorial" complaint:

Newsflash people: European fascists of the early 20th century are NOT the only people to use Neo-Classical architectural motifs. Fascist governments did use them, and yes, the Nazis were very good at using them. That doesn't make any other application of those motifs inherently fascistic. To the poster who referred to the memorial as fitting in well with "Mussolini's Rome": Since when does a city with thousands of years of culture and history get dismissed as belonging to a dictator who ruled for a smidgen of that?

As for the "Nazi-esque Eagles": The eagle is a popular heraldric symbol with many nations. Do you seriously think that people in Mexico, Yemen, Egypt, or Eastern Europe in general worry that the eagle on their coat-of-arms is nazi-esque? Concern that the eagles on the monument look too much like a Nazi eagle is just silly - there are only so many ways to depict an Eagle-as-icon. Put it into context people.

Second point to address: The "I like the Washington and Lincoln Memorials so much better..." argument

OK, if you're looking for a monument that has despotic, totalitarian overtones it's THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT. That is an Egyptian-style obelisk. Egyptians regarded their pharoahs as kings and gods, and the pharoahs were generally not the most benevolent of rulers. I don't hear people complain about potentially depicting GW in that manner despite this being a secular democracy...

Lincoln (as someone stated above) is derivative of Greek Doric architecture. Hmm... you know who else made a lot of Doric-knock-off monuments? The Nazis! Start your petition now...

Third complaint: "I can't take a good photo of it!":

Type WWII Memorial into Google image search, learn how to use your camera, and try again.

The WWII Memorial is fine. It is able to handle throngs of tourists during the summer, groups of vets on memorial/veterans day, the gold-star symbolism is absolutely appropriate, and if it strikes you as grim and less-than-pretty, well, war is like that...

Both Roosevelts are nice memorials. I like Teddy's because of it's remote location, surrounded by woods and a simple grandios bronze standing strong in all the elements. Appropriate and peaceful.

This memorial was built from approximately $200 million in donations and most people I know who have experienced it firsthand are dazzled and moved by it. I find it particulary nice at night. And all those neo-classic touches do evoke the era nicely. I think the headline on the OP was intended to stir controversy and debate, as are the bloggers referenced in the OP. To label this Everyone Hates The WWII Memorial has that neo-Nazi, NYPost feel to it, even with the DCist tongue-in-cheek *everything is fair game to us* ambience it tries to project. Back to subject. Now, by comparison - and it is a fair one in a world capital - let us talk about the new home for the Nats. Somehow the new stadium project came up with two-thirds of a billion dollars and what a load of architectural stink that is. My point here is that everything depresses Garrison Keillor, so can we raise some funds to have him and the DCist editor have lunch by the new stadium sometime and maybe both get so depressed that they dive into the Anacostia and disappear, poignantly, togther?

One of the reasons it gets called fascist is precisely because it lacks the "neo-classic touches" which distinguish real neoclassicism from the stripped-down, bombastic, über-masculine style that Mussolini and Albert Speer seemed to be fond of. Careful attention to detail and proportion were hallmarks of real neoclassicism that the anti-intellectuals of the fascist movements scorned. Instead their styles (and rhetoric) were based on a appeal to base emotion over reason. If you want to see authentic neoclassicism look the Lincoln Memorial or the US Supreme Court. The WWII memorial isn't really neoclassical at all.

@stmove

Sorry to burst your bubble but the WWII memorial is much closer to modernism than classicism.

The memorial is far too sanitary a monument. It utterly fails to convey the obscene murderous horror that is war. An open ossuary containing the bones of 72 million men, women, and children would be more fitting.

There is no glory in war. Our war memorials should never let us forget that.

It is not true that "everyone hated" the Vietnam memorial at first. Completely wrong. It was both very popular and highly praised by the critics right from its opening - check the newspaper files you don't believe me. A few conservative members of Congress griped that it was not "heroic" enough, and eventually lobbied to but in that jarring, inappropriate statue series next to it. But that was a small minority, most people loved it.

As for WWII, Garrison got it right - it looks like it was "ordered from a catalog."

"I actually think 'omigod it's fascist-looking' is a perfectly valid critique."

Not if you've never been anywhere or read anything. Then you're all like, "So what if it's an aesthetic tribute to the vanquished Nazis and Italian Fascists? It's big and overwhelming, and I like it!"

Like the Molina character from "Kiss of the Spider Woman".

I like the WW2 memorial but hate the insult FDR memorial.

I'm all for supporting people with disabilities but forcing changes on a monument so a certain group of people can use it as an example is wrong. FDR would have bulldozed that place rather than be portrayed in a wheel chair. Is that an enlightened view, of course not but it is accurate. He was not proud of the fact and this is a memorial dedicated to him not Americans with disabilities (I would have no problem with him in a wheelchair in such a memorial), or the cancer society (I think I read the original design has him smoking, but OMG we can't show that!!!).

My point is I think we should portray our leaders in an accurate light; the good & the bad and FDR was not a crusader for the disabled, in fact I think he was embarrassed by it. Either way its his memorial and his views were dismissed to appease other people.