The Impact of Monuments in the US

Over thousands of years and millions of labor hours, countless memorials and monuments have been built. Why is this? Many a time has this question been asked, but in the words of Kin Hubbard, an American humorist, we find an answer: “Peace has its victories no less than war, but it doesn’t have as many monuments to unveil.” Thus, we see that monuments come from times of trial and error, mistakes and darkness that seem to find us when we least expect it. Although, many of us remember what happened, a “…monument manufactures its own aura” (Source A). This aura normally presents a new perspective on the way things actually were. As we see every day, monuments have rose from the ashes of darkness to remind us never to return or forget.

This darkness has shrouded the Central Intelligence Agency’s cover-ups and operational losses for years, they say this is for “National Security”. Although, this may be true, they have remembered them through a memorial that bears the somber remembrance that peace can’t exist without sacrifice. This memorial is the CIA Memorial Wall. This wall was created to remember members of the Clandestine Service or any Active Service Branch of the CIA that died while serving on duty. A marble structure with 107 black stars etched into its surface, one for each member, has become a staple of the CIA and is one of its most prominent features at its Langley Headquarters. The wall is maintained by a select staff handpicked by the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and is funded by the tax payers of the United States. When a star must be etched into the wall, the CIA allows Tim Johnston a member of the Carving and Restoration Team of Virginia to create it. This wall is not open to the public, but it ha...

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...e drive and dedication to help our fellow man and to improve not only our societies, but have also secured and protected our way of life. Through these monuments we will remember our mistakes, achievements, failures, milestones and especially our work as a species. We will see how our society has shaped itself throughout the ages and how it has overcome barriers; most of all we can witness how our people no matter how different have overcome differences to last our species throughout time.

Works Cited

Savage, Kirk. Monument Wars: Washington, D.C., the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape. Berkeley: U of California P, 2009. Print.

Downes, Lawrence. "Waiting for Crazy Horse." New York Times. New York Times, 2 Sept. 2009. Web. 20 Dec. 2010

Lin, Maya. "Making the Memorial." New York Review of Books. NYREV, Inc., Nov. 2000. Web. 5 July 2011.