The Marine Corps and Air Force are battling over exclusive rights to a plot of land along Arlington Ridge, in Arlington, Va.-the site of the Marines' Iwo Jima memorial and the proposed location of a new Air Force memorial.
A standing-room-only public hearing hosted Wednesday by the National Park Service at Arlington's central public library featured 66 registered speakers, most of whom were there to voice opposition to the Air Force Memorial site.
The debate over the memorial has been heating up since January 1992, when the Air Force Memorial Foundation was created to find a way to honor Air Force members. The Air Force is the only branch of the armed services without a memorial in the Washington area.
The National Capital Memorial Commission, the Commission on Fine Arts, and the National Capital Planning Commission all have approved the Arlington Ridge location, some 500 feet from the Marine Corps' Iwo Jima memorial.
But several Marine Corps representatives said the proposal treads on hallowed grounds, including Capt. Samuel F. Saxton, president of the Montford Marines, an organization named after the first African-American Marines.
"We paid for that ground with blood, sweat and tears," said Saxton. "We will fight for this until the last Montford is put in the ground."
Maj. Gen. David Vice, director of Marine Corps staff, said the Corps strongly supports an Air Force memorial, but argued that an environmental assessment of the Air Force proposal failed to take into account the importance of the Iwo Jima memorial. The memorial is in a "church-like setting," he said. "Any [new] memorial placed on the site will upset the tranquil setting."
The evening's youngest speaker was ten-year-old Alex Kim of the Young Marines, a nonprofit youth association described by its President as "the boy scouts with an attitude." Kim, who often visits the Iwo Jima site with his father, a Marine, implored the Air Force to find a different site for its monument. "I think it is O.K.," he said, "but I don't think it should be at the same place."
Dr. Felix DeWeldon, the sculptor of the Iwo Jima memorial, also opposed the proposal, saying, "the Air Force is so important, it should have its own land." Even the Road Runners Club of America sent a representative to oppose the new memorial on the grounds that it would interfere with the start and finish of the annual Marine Corps Marathon.
The Air Force's proposed site design has been modified significantly since opposition to the memorial began. What was originally a three-room multi-media site has been condensed to a "singular experience," said General Charles Link, executive director of the Air Force Association. Link said Marine opposition to the project is based on "false assumptions." The Air Force says it will close its memorial when the Marine Corps is hosting events on its site.
A civil suit filed against the Air Force Memorial Foundation by the Friends of Iwo Jima and Rep. Gerald B.H. Solomon, R-N.Y., was dismissed last June. The National Capital Planning Commission says it it is still in the middle of the decision-making process for the Air Force Memorial site.
Wednesday's public hearing will be resumed on March 3, because the meeting ended before all 66 speakers had a chance to speak.
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