May 28, 2001
Web posted at: 12:35 p.m. EDT (1635 GMT)

President Bush signed a bill Monday to prepare the way for the World War II monument on the National Mall

WASHINGTON -- A bill-signing ceremony for the controversial World War II Memorial in Washington and the dedication of a D-Day memorial in Virginia dominated Memorial Day activities on Monday.

At the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Vietnam War combat veteran Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska, spoke at a ceremony honoring six other veterans who lost their lives in the war and whose names have been newly engraved on the memorial's black marble wall.

Earlier Monday, at the White House, President George W. Bush signed a bill to clear the way for a long-stalled World War II monument on the National Mall.

The bill ends lawsuits and procedural hitches that have held up the start of construction for eight years, allowing organizers to resume the contractor-selection process and start building within a couple of months. Congress passed the measure last week.

"In the 60th year after Pearl Harbor it is my huge honor to set my name on this bill, ordering construction of a monument that will stand for the ages," Bush said at the signing ceremony. "Not only will I sign the bill, I will make sure the monument gets built."

After the ceremony, Bush participated in the traditional presidential wreath-laying at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Immediately following the wreath-laying, Bush delivered a speech honoring the nation's war dead. (Transcript: Bush's remarks)

Later, Bush was scheduled to fly to Mesa, Arizona, where he was to pay tribute to veterans at the Champlin Fighter Aircraft Museum, before heading to California for a two-day stay.

Controversy about the memorial has intensified because World War II veterans are dying at a rate of 1,100 each day, according to Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony J. Principi.

Opponents argued that the mall should remain open and untouched, so that future generations can protest the government in the tradition of Martin Luther King. Some also described the memorial design as gaudy, or authoritarian.

The controversy, which has even put some veterans on opposing sides, may endure as part of the memorial's legacy.

"It is time to put all of this in the past and do right by our honored dead and the veterans that are still with us," memorial planners spokesman Michael Conley told The Associated Press. "It is almost unforgivable that we have no place in Washington that honors those who fought in a war that gave us our modern identity as a nation."

Built around the existing Rainbow Pool on the mall, it is to be a shallow stone crater that extends across 7.4 acres. On either side, there are 43-foot tall concrete triumphal arches, one representing the victory in the Atlantic theater, the other, the Pacific.

Cradling the circle are 56 pillars; one for every state and territory at the time. At the heart of the memorial, fountains spring out of a pool of clear water. At its head, a wall of gleaming golden stars, one for every 1,000 American soldiers who died, stands between two waterfalls.

In Bedford, Virginia, another World War II Memorial was to be dedicated on Monday -- this one for the town's 23 men who died in the Allies' D-Day invasion of Normandy in 1944. It was the highest per capita loss for any U.S. community.

"We lost so many men," Boyd Wilson, 79, told The Associated Press. Boyd joined Virginia's 116th National Guard before it was sent to war. "It was just painful."

The memorial will officially open the day after the dedication.