The program was presented by President Brad Hoch (pictured above) Following is an excerpt of what Brad
Said about monuments. His talk was very thought provoking about the value of monuments
(which includes 3 dimensional statues).
ON THE MONUMENT: BEYOND THE RINGING OF THE BELL AND THE WEEPING OF THE WIDOW. “If a man do [sic] not erect in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live no longer in monument than the bell rings and the widow weeps.” William Shakespeare Much Ado About Nothing Act 5, Scene 2. GOALS Monuments
The human need for monuments is imbedded somewhere deep, down, inside our soul. If you doubt that, walk into any cemetery. Monuments are important. They are symbols, and they can have profound effect -- on our emotions and on our 2 actions. Call them what you will: monuments, tombstones, statues, memorials, shrines … in the end, they are really all the same.
Today, as we stand in “the shadow of statues”, we would do well to remember the words of Henry David Thoreau: “The question is not what you look at, but what you see.” -- Thoreau’s Journal, 5 August 1851. Today is December 7th, Pearl Harbor Day, an infamous day, and we take a moment to remember those who lost their lives – and those who survived. At Pearl Harbor, there is a memorial above the sunken USS Arizona, a monument to the 1,102 sailors who lie under the waves, keeping their pledge of commitment to our nation.
Before my father died, he stood on that memorial. He was not at Pearl Harbor in 1941, but he did see combat in the Pacific in 1944. I often wonder, as he looked on the Arizona 3 memorial, what past came into his present? What did he see? Were there flashbacks of 1944? Did he see the horror that he once lived? Did he see the man that he held in his arms, talking to him, even though the back of his head was gone? Did he see himself giving water from his canteen to a man who was dying from a severe abdominal wound? I will never know. I only know that after he came home in 1946, he saw each new day of life as a gift not to be squandered.
Washington Square lies diagonally southwest of Independence Square in downtown Philadelphia. In Revolutionary times it was a potter’s field, and more than a thousand of George Washington’s troops are buried there. Within the square is a monument known as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of the American Revolution. Along with a small statue of Washington 4 and an eternal flame, there is an inscription: “Freedom is a light for which many men have died in darkness.” At the base of the monument is a tomb. On its lid are carved the words: “Beneath this stone lies a soldier of Washington’s army who died to give you liberty.” I was last there several days after 911, 2001. Folks had brought red roses and candles that lay atop the coffin. People sat on nearby benches … crying. The square with its monument … is a sacred place.
This past July my wife and I were on tour in Italy. As the group drove south out of Florence, the tour guide made an unscheduled stop. Seven miles south of the city lies an American Military Cemetery. Our guide said, “Our dead deserve to be remembered.” There are more than 4,000 American GIs buried there in the Italian soil; and at the end of a long path, there is a 5 high stone wall with the names of more than 1,300 Americans carved into it. These are the names of men without bodies – the missing in action.
I don’t know why, but I decided to walk to that wall. By rights, I should have just stayed on the bus. I was in pain from a knee fracture. Just as I got there, a thought came into my mind. Was my Uncle John there? The MIA names were in alphabetical order. And I was shocked … amazed … when I found his name. In 1944 my uncle parachuted out of a crashing B-24 bomber, into the Adriatic Sea. Neither he nor his body were ever found.
He was 24 years old. Growing up, he was my mother’s best friend. I never knew him, but I knew my mother’s love for him. The folks we traveled with said that I was somehow “meant” to be there … to find it. I cannot begin to describe what an emotional experience seeing his name on that wall was, for me. Some may not understand. I don’t understand. It was just a name carved on a stone wall. But in 6 that moment, I felt that I had finally found my Uncle. When I told my 97-year old mother and showed her the photographs, she studied them and after a long pause said: “John’s name has been on a memorial in Italy for all these years, and they never told us!”
Monuments mean something to somebody. They are symbols, and they are important. And this monument meant more to me and my mother than I can ever put into words. At times monuments cause our spirits to soar -- the Eiffel tower, the Lincoln Memorial, the Taj Mahal, Stonehenge, the great Pyramids of Egypt, and the Great Wall of China. At times monuments are painful.
Within a 100-mile radius of where we stand, there are literally hundreds of thousands of stones dedicated to loved ones, now gone. Whenever I walk into Springhill Cemetery in Shippensburg where six generations of 7 my family lie, I am reminded of how difficult it is for us humans to say good-bye. We are called upon to say it so often, yet we have not quite learned how to do it well. Joy and sorrow travel side by side.
So … what is a monument? On a very basic level, monuments bring the past into the present. For the purposes of our present discussion, I will speak primarily about statues – They are three-dimensional figures from out of our past, and they do help us to understand our present. And just perhaps, at times, they may inspire us into the future.
Picture the United States Marine Corp Memorial near Arlington Cemetery in Virginia. How many men and women do you suspect have been inspired into their future by this monument? Mitch Landrieu wrote of statues: “We use them in telling the stories of our past and who we are, and we choose them carefully.” I once asked a Jewish friend of mine if he liked history. He answered, “Whose history?” And therein lies the rub.
Just as history so often depends on who does the telling, so too do the stories that our statues tell. It depends on whose stories are chosen and whose viewpoint they portray. Statues have a power for good, and a power for bad; a power to heal, and a power to divide. As William Faulkner famously wrote: “The past is never dead; it is not even past.” As an example of the divide that statues can bring about, Brad spoke of the removal of statues in New Orleans and the way it was handled at night by individuals who wore masks and were unidentified and secured so that they would not be harmed in the process.
What should a statue be? Is it “Who we were, Who we want to be, or Who we are?” He pointed out that some are recognized for their artistry and some for the history associated with the memorial or statue. He assured us that there is no intention by the Park Service to remove any statues here in Gettysburg. In fact, Gettysburg is a memorial into itself. We commemorate the duty, courage and sacrifice of those who died here.
