Ii Memorial

WASHINGTON - Marg Nelson began making arrangements months ago. First the airline tickets and the hotel reservations. Next, the Battle of the Bulge reunion details. Then the downloading of photos of the new World War II memorial on the National Mall. Then she tackled a final detail: finding a way for her elderly mother, Mabel, weakened by heart trouble, and her father Margden, on the mend from prostate cancer, to navigate around the 7 1/2 -acre memorial grounds for the dedication tomorrow.

WASHINGTON - Thousands arrived on the National Mall this week for the anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech to find a changed landscape from the one King saw in 1963 as he looked out from the Lincoln Memorial. The controversial National World War II Memorial is now taking shape in full view between the spot where King stood on the Lincoln Memorial and the nearby Washington Monument. "It was particularly poignant last weekend when some of us were standing where Dr. King stood, looking out across the Mall and realizing that the symbolic meaning of the Mall, which is the founding of the nation and the seat of democracy in the capital and the restoration of the Union under Lincoln, is now altered by a memorial to a historic event - a war," said Judy Scott Feldman, chairman of the National Coalition to Save Our Mall.

YOU WALK OUT of "Saving Private Ryan" cursing every previous World War II movie ever made for hiding the truth. You leave the theater vilifying Hollywood for all the years it cheapened the slaughter of human beings, for giving us John Wayne types who turned fear into cardboard heroics, and for all the postwar movies that sent a generation of boys into their back yards to fire toy machine guns at each other without connecting it to the horror faced by...

For the New York architect who designed it, Maryland's World War II Memorial will be a dream come true.Secundino "Dino" Fernandez, 55, said he has won design competitions for memorials of various kinds since he was in college but that none of those projects materialized, usually for lack of funds.Now, with work to begin on the monument in Anne Arundel County next month, the Cuban-born architect finally will see one of his designs through to completion -- and Maryland veterans will get a memorial years after the opening of state Korean and Vietnam war memorials.

WASHINGTON -- A federal commission demanded extensive revisions in a proposed World War II memorial yesterday, agreeing with critics who argued that the design was ill-suited for its site along the Mall.J. Carter Brown, chairman of the seven-member Commission of Fine Arts, which must approve the design, avoided the words "rejected" or "disapproved." But he made clear that all board members had serious concerns about the winning design of Friedrich St. Florian. At the same time, the commission maintained its support for the location between the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial, despite complaints that the memorial would obstruct sightlines along the Mall's hallowed grounds.

WASHINGTON - One year shy of half a century after the end of the war against fascism in Germany, Italy and Japan, the veterans of that war - now dubbed "the greatest generation" for saving Western democracy - finally have their memorial. Men and women in their late 70s and 80s and 90s, some of them admittedly puzzled as to why the Vietnam and Korean war veterans were memorialized before the World War II vets, are streaming here daily now. Raymond Pyles, 80, of Wheaton, a veteran of the Battle of Bulge, says: "It's beautiful, but it took a long time getting here."

Washington's World War II Memorial won't be dedicated until Memorial Day weekend, but visitors to the nation's capital will be able to explore it starting later this month. With construction ahead of schedule - and hundreds of World War II veterans dying every day - builders of the $107 million monument decided it didn't make sense to keep it off limits to the public any longer than necessary. As contractors rushed yesterday to finish the landscaping, representatives of the American Battle Monuments Commission announced that the construction fences would soon be coming down and the completed memorial will have a "soft opening" by month's end. "This memorial may be a first in Washington," Gen. Paul Xavier "P.X."

Column on war crime defamed the memory of America's veterans Printing "Remember also war's dark side" (Opinion Commentary, May 28) on Memorial Day was in poor taste. Printing the professors' research on rapes committed by our troops in World War II defamed the memories of our fallen brave and our surviving veterans on the very day they should be honored. And the incidents cited, although certainly despicable, were relatively few. They were committed by a tiny number of troops, most of whom were punished.

Mail call for U.S. troops serving in Iraq has lost none of its power in being able to connect them to family, lovers and friends back home. While satellite phones and e-mail have helped narrow the communications gap between troops serving abroad and their loved ones, mail call with its prospect of letters and packages remains an emotionally charged break from the routine. "This is the closest thing to going home," a soldier serving with the 7th Infantry Regiment recently told the Associated Press regarding mail call.

Veterans Day observances are set to take place tomorrow at war memorials and veterans cemeteries throughout the state. Originally called Armistice Day and celebrated to mark the end of World War I in 1918, Veterans Day honors veterans who fought and are fighting for freedom, said the office of Maryland Department of Veterans Affairs. In keeping with the traditional ceremony, most of tomorrow's events will begin at 11 a.m., the hour on Nov. 11, 1918, that hostilities between the Allied forces and Germany ended.