U.S. veterans rally to protest war memorial plans

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - About a dozen U.S. World War II veterans Friday plunged into a war of words over a memorial to the war planned for the National Mall , protesting the project ahead of Saturday's groundbreaking that symbolically heralds its construction.

But the National Coalition to Save the Mall which organized the protest and last month filed a lawsuit against the memorial claiming federal laws were violated during the site selection, said the group would respect the event itself on Veterans Day, Saturday.

The protesters claim the project, which is intended to honor veterans like them, spoils the open vista of the Mall, a symbolic area at the heart of the capital that runs from Congress to the Washington Monument's obelisk to a memorial of Abraham Lincoln.

"I think I have as much right to talk about things like this as most of the people who are advocating destroying this Mall," Navy veteran John Floberg told Reuters.

"I'd like to think I did a good job ... but I'm not arrogant enough to think that any one of us has the same right to be memorialized on this Mall as George Washington or Abraham Lincoln."

Supporters believe the memorial, which comprises of columns around the existing Rainbow Pool and thousand of gold stars, will further edify the largely green area that is lined with trees and often used for massive rallies and celebrations.

"This is going to be the most beautiful open space in Washington," architect Friedrich St. Florian told reporters this week, noting the potential for outdoor performances and plentiful seating around the pool. "People will flock here."

Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks, war veteran and former senator Bob Dole and President Clinton will speak Saturday at an elaborate event the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) plans at the site between the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial.

The gala will also feature military bands playing war-era songs and a computerized 3-D walk-through of the memorial, whose columns represent the unity of U.S states and territories.

But the groundbreaking will be purely ceremonial as paperwork for a construction permit could take until the spring to complete despite the fact that the project has won all the formal approvals necessary.

Thus about 40 dignitaries, including the 101-year-old mother of a fallen soldier, will sink their spades into a wooden trough of dirt rather than the Mall's celebrated soil.

That is a relief for the project opponents rallying at the off-Mall site the ABMC originally chose for the memorial but which planners vetoed as too lowly. Critics had threatened to seek a court injunction if any Mall soil was shoveled.

Backers say the Mall site ultimately chosen and dedicated by Clinton five years ago is the most fitting for a tribute to a war which both embodied the country's ideals and was a catalyst for historic economic and social transformation.

They add that the design, which will also include a field of 4,000 gold stars for the 400,000 dead, has been refined extensively in years of debate and criticism and its smaller, sunken design will not disturb the long view along the Mall.

But coalition co-chair Judy Feldman Friday attacked the design as "meaningless" and has expressed fears in the past that it will eat into open green space.

"I protest what is being done in my name," said Charles Cassell, an architect and veteran. "I am so sorry that my legacy may include the desecration of the Mall."

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