The Atlantic Theatre portion of the World, War II Memorial
Wives of SNL field testers visited Sedan Crater during their February 1975 tour of the Nevada Test Site.
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Contacts:
Rebecca Ullrich, (raullri@sandia.gov) Corporate Historian
Laura Martinez,
(martini@sandia.gov)
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Rebecca Ullrich
I recently returned from a trip to the Washington, D.C. area. It was a standard family vacation — swimming in the chill of the Atlantic, seeing summer blockbuster movies on humid afternoons, trying to get our 9-year-old son to eat something not containing 90% of his daily requirement of fat, salt, and sugar in each bite. We also took a day for the Mall. My husband and I are both historians, so the Mall is a busman's holiday for us — a treat, surely, but a chance to think about what we do for a living, as well. As we encountered the blazing white pedestals of the Lincoln Memorial, the cool elegance of the Vietnam and Korean War Veterans Memorials, and the weighty concrete of the new World War II Memorial, our son was driven to ask, 'What are all these memorials for?' It's a good question, particularly given the heartache and controversy that goes into the creation of each new one, and the fact that everyone out on the hot, sticky trudge between them looks worn, befuddled, and a little cranky.
But the question is answered in meeting each installation; no one looks so out of sorts while actually at each memorial. We started with the Lincoln Memorial, planning to end at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (yes, a bribe for the kid; we're not proud). The Mall is barricaded now — by concrete barriers and black chain link fences intended to protect the site from attack. It is intimidating to get to the Lincoln Memorial — crossing speeding traffic, coming through the narrow openings in the barricades, and then facing the deliberately awe-inspiring rise of the steps to columns and thick stone walls. Once inside, the statue of Lincoln looms in the center, with speeches carved on the walls to either side. On the right, the soaring vision of his Second Inaugural Address. And, on the wall to the left of the massive pedestal holding the hard, carved lines of the great man, is the glorious text of the Gettysburg Address. It is a powerful speech — elegant, short, ringing with a poetic rhythm — and it is a model of faith in democracy. Imagine Lincoln, a tall stooped wraith of a figure, drafting and then delivering such a fine statement of the principle of unity, pausing on the edge of a new cemetery holding the bodies of those whose lives were done, gone, breathless; standing in the midst of the Civil War's destruction and desolation, asserting a firm conviction that the Nation's founding principles would triumph and thrive in the face of every adversity. A hard and costly belief. To face such greatness is both humbling and inspiring — it gives you something to want to live up to. To be a citizen worthy of such faith.
Humility turned out to be a central feeling as we moved on through the veterans and war memorials. The Korean War Veterans Memorial is also beautiful — bronze figures of men in combat gear and draped in ponchos walking up a patch of lawn as though up a hill or road. Their faces reflect exhaustion, strength, resignation, some fear — they are convincingly human, stark but empathetic figures that resonate with the sacrifices they made. Along one side of the space runs a cool black stone wall bearing etched images from the war — faces in relaxation and combat, groups and individuals, with their equipment and alone. At the top, the group of sculptures comes to a single point near the top of the wall as it intersects with a round pool of still water, shimmering in the heat of July. To see the memorial is to interact with it, moving along the men as they walk, looking into their faces, sensing the weight of their packs. It forces you to imagine their war, their world, their youth; forces you to confront the thought that your own world is in part a result of the decisions they made. Makes you wonder what you would have done in their place. And monument after monument distills the events of history into a single digestible moment, here, thousands of miles from the place the images were captured and decades after they occurred.
But, here's the kicker. This is not just a place where history is memorialized into national myth and legend; it is also a place where history is made. At the Lincoln Memorial, for example, after the photos are snapped and the postcards purchased, you leave the calming shade of the main chamber and step back into the sun. The stairs are broad and steep, there is a landing about a quarter of the way down; it is a perfect place to stop and take in the vista of Washington's glory spreading up the Mall in front of you: the reflecting pool, the World War II Memorial, the Washington Monument, and on through the expanse of the Smithsonian museums to the Capitol. As you stand there, you realize that you've seen this picture before — in film clips, news stories, American history textbooks. In that vision, it is a sea of people. They are engaged in free, public protest, sanctioned by the first amendment. And you realize that you're standing on the granite of history — this is where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., stood on August 28, 1963, and delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech to 200,000 participants in the March on Washington. The cadence of the improvised part of the speech articulating King's dream rises to memory as you stand there; you'll notice others around you making the same realization. There, in front of the tribute to the man who signed the Emancipation Proclamation, King pressed for the full realization of a nation conceived in liberty.
So, we told our son that that's what these memorials are for — to deliberately, consciously remember. To remember history — what happened and why and where — but also, more directly, to remember and inculcate our mythology. No one alive has a personal memory of Lincoln at Gettysburg, Korea is referred to as "the forgotten war" as it gets so little time in courses and memories, and I only saw King on television, although there are records and artifacts left to inform and interpret these historical events. But, the architectural memorial corporealizes those moments deemed remarkable or emblematic, giving us a place to stand and specific prompts for our memory. The memorials let us know what the United States of America believes itself to be about.
As for the individuals honored, the messages of the memorials emphasize that it's hard to stand up and do the right thing, hard to face the roaring current of prevailing preference and do what you know to be right, but it's worth it. Not because somebody will necessarily build a memorial for you (he asked) and certainly not because it will be easy, but because it needs doing. This is one of the hardest lessons that history offers us; it is one I want my son to learn.
Indexing of the negatives in the Corporate Archives Still Photo Collection is ongoing (7,940 in Fiscal Year 2004, so far). The items are catalogued into the Technical Library's classified catalogue. Some unclassified negatives from the collection are being scanned and catalogued on CQuest, the Creative Arts image database available to all Sandians. Those images are also available in low-resolution versions on unclassified Web FileShare. These corporate systems allow all employees to find and use relevant images quickly and cheaply.
Project Femininity
Still Photo Clerk Shirley Aleman placed onto CQuest twenty-two images from a wives tour conducted at the Nevada Test Site (NTS) on February 10, 1975. Bobby G. "B. G." Edwards, a former NTS site manager, provided us with information about the wives tours and allowed us to scan the photographs from his wife's scrapbook. Sandia initiated the wives tour program — called Project Femininity — as a way to inform the field testers' wives about the work their husbands did and to "promote domestic tranquility." For several years in the 1970s, wives were hosted to tours at the NTS so that they could learn more about the site, the research conducted there, and the places in which their husbands worked. The tours included a luncheon and were very well received; later, the Department of Energy and the other labs at NTS followed suit with similar tour programs.
Remember that the Corporate Archives Still Photo Collection may be a resource for your projects. You can call Still Photo Clerk Shirley Aleman at (505) 844-7404 for historical or current photographs or access the CQuest Database.