REMEMBER US: The Fight for America's World War I Memorial

John Gregg: We are here to finally celebrate the completion of the World War I Memorial.

So honored to be a part of the project, so excited to see it completed.

Sabin Howard: We're lighting for the very first time the 60 foot bronze called "A Soldier's Journey."

Meredith Carr: This is the culmination of so many people that have worked so hard and didn't care about the credit, and just made it happen because we knew it was the right thing to do, and to remember those who served in the past, remember those who are serving right now, and in a hundred years, to tell them their service will not be forgotten.

[bell chiming] Joseph Weishaar: In building this memorial, the World War I Centennial Commission has renewed the vows of faithfulness between this country and those young men and women with a new sacred promise for all to see.

It has been a privilege to witness the devotion with which the commission has fulfilled their mission against the greatest of odds.

Leon Panetta: We actually had a press conference to announce the effort to try to create this memorial, and why we were doing it.

I remember a reporter coming up afterwards and basically saying something like, "Do you really think this is gonna happen?

I mean, you know, after all, it's been over a hundred years, and memories fade and people die.

Do you really think this is possible?"

And I remember looking at that reporter, and I said, "My father fought in that war, and I think we owe it to people like my father who, because of their sacrifice, gave us the country we now have.

You're damn right we can make this happen.

Sandra Pershing: When my husband, Jack, was a little boy, he used to go out with his grandfather, and Jack was always just surprised at the number of people who would follow them down the street with cameras, or just pieces of paper, asking the General, "Please sign an autograph."

No one remembers.

Some of the older people I've met say, "General Pershing?

That name sounds familiar," or, "Oh, there's a Pershing Street in my town."

But they have no idea.

I'm so happy that we're going to get this built to recognize all the people who nobody has paid any attention to.

That was just such an altruistic group of people, and everybody went, and they all managed to get along, and they saved each other's lives, and they made it work.

The General had every camera in the world on him, and so did some of his aides like General Patton, MacArthur; these people, many of whom didn't even make it home, have had almost no recognition for what they did.

And this war represented all of us in the States.

I think the General would say, "It's about time."

Carol Moseley Braun: World War I was a war that changed everything.

It changed the social fabric.

The community began to change across the world, the condition of the status of women, the condition and status for African-Americans, for Native Americans, immigrant Americans.

The configuration of the political map changed.

Four empires fell, and we had new countries created out of that war.

All these things changed in that great war to fight and protect democracy.

Barry McCaffrey: World War I was possibly the most decisive, monumental change in history.

Industrial production was at its height.

The lack of political animosity among the nations of the world was remarkable, and then it was destruction from the Urals to the English Channel.

Michael Mullen: The war had been going on for somewhat 3.5 years before we entered, and it wasn't going well.

It was a virtual stalemate at that particular time, and the United States went in with about 18 months left in the war and turned it, and basically won it.

While we lost, you know, so many thousands in doing that, in a way we saved many, many lives because we ended a war probably long before it actually was gonna end.

Barry: In a matter of 18 months, we went from a tiny, almost nonexistent US armed forces to nearly 5 million in uniform, men and women, and of that we deployed 2 million to combat in France, and during that short period of time, these practically untrained young GIs and Marines beat the preeminent military force on the face of the earth, which was the Kaiser's armies.

What would have happened had the Americans not been willing to step forward and try and save civilization and humanity by fighting in Europe?

Edwin Fountain: I came to the World War I Memorial project in a kind of a roundabout way.

The journey actually started here at the D.C.

War Memorial.

One day when I was out on a run, I stopped and I walked over to figure out what it was, and I learned about it.

This is the District of Columbia's memorial to its residents who fought and died in World War I. You have this local World War I memorial right next to the national memorials to the three other great wars of the 20th century, and as I often say, my sense of symmetry was offended, and I thought, "Why isn't there a national memorial to World War I?"

And that was what I call my "if not you, who?"

moment.

I said, "All right, I'll kick this ball down the road and see where it goes."

Daniel Dayton: Edwin was the real visionary for a national World War I memorial, but it hadn't happened in a hundred years.

Ed needed help, especially from the Congress, and Congressman Ted Poe was there for us.

Ted Poe: When I served in Congress, I had the opportunity to meet the last surviving Doughboy, Frank Buckles Jr.

He was over 100 when I met him, and I learned that he served in World War I. He lied to get into the United States Army.

He was 15 or 16, he told them he was 18.

He drove an ambulance, rescued other Doughboys who'd been wounded or killed on the battlefield, and he said, "There needs to be a memorial here," and he asked me who I was, and I told him who I was, and he said, "You get it done."

Representative Cleaver was also wanting to get the World War I Memorial built, so we got together and started talking about how we could get this done.

Both of us came to the conclusion it was way overdue.

Emanuel Cleaver: The judge and I hit it off, and we began to work together, and we were an unlikely pair because he was a conservative Republican, and I was a liberal Democrat.

But we actually became friends, and so I began to call him "The Judge," and he called me "Preacher."

Ted: The issue was not politics.

The issue was what was right for America and the American Doughboy, and politics never entered into it.

Emanuel Cleaver is a tenacious guy, and when he made up his mind that it was gonna get done, it got done.

Emanuel: It was not easy to get done.

We had to get beyond personalities, we had to get beyond politics.

It's a memory of what happens when people cooperate that I'd like to carry on for the rest of my life.

Ted: We need to put aside the pride of politics, as I call it.

Most good legislation is bipartisan legislation, and this was a perfect example, this World War I Commission.

I thought it would be a lot easier than it was, and then all of a sudden it all happened.

Meredith Carr: Dan Dayton called me in the summer of 2013 and said, "Meredith, the World War I Centennial Commission is a thing.

We're gonna build a memorial, and I need your help.

I need you to volunteer."

And I said, "Dan, absolutely I wanna work with you.

I'll be employee number one, but I live in Richmond, and you know, the Commission's in Washington D.C.," and he said, "Meredith, we have no office space and no money, so I don't care where you work."

Daniel: This Commission was set up in law with a specific provision in it which says no federal funds may be used in the pursuit of accomplishing this legislation.

To illustrate what that meant, at one point our commissioners who are spread out around the country were all coming to Washington for a meeting, and I said, "You know, why don't we have a meeting in the Pentagon?"

So I called up somebody and said, "Hey, can we get a conference room to have our meeting?"

He said, "Well, you know, the use of a conference room is considered a government expenditure.

It--there's a cost associated with the conference room, and your legislation says you can't spend any government money, so you can't meet in the Pentagon."

Meredith: We didn't have any money to do this, but we had our time and our grit and our dedication.

I think it gave us all this sense of duty and obligation, and we were the underdog--not dissimilar, I think, to where America was at the beginning of World War I. We had no, you know, real army to speak of, except we had millions of Americans who felt it was their duty and obligation to sign up to serve their country.

Terry Hamby: They were the first to go to another country that most had never visited, fight in a war they didn't start; most importantly, were willing to die for peace and liberty for people they had never met.

Today, we have men and women stationed all over the world who are doing this so you and I can make the choices that we take for granted every day as Americans who understand what peace and liberty is all about.

Meredith: This memorial would not be built if it weren't for Terry Hamby.

He didn't know much about World War I at the time, but he has a history of military service.

Every member of his family going back to the Revolutionary War has served, including himself.

Daniel: Well, I just got a call from the majority leader's office, and he said, "Okay, your new commissioner is Terry Hamby, and he's from Kentucky, and here's his phone number," so I called him up.

Terry: Dan ran me through the rules, what I could do, what I couldn't do, talked about the pay, which was nothing.

It was the perfect, perfect, perfect wage, and I started trying to learn and read as much as I could about the Great War.

And after you read, you wonder, how did we miss it?

How did we miss it?

Mitch McConnell: People had forgotten about World War I, and it was a huge and important conflict.

I had the good fortune to know Terry Hamby, who I was aware had a long history with the military.

What we tried to do was to sort of re-educate the American people about the importance of that conflict.

We had to have somebody leading the charge, and that was what Terry did so successfully.

Daniel: It was very difficult for us to get an appropriation from the Congress because there were no living veterans.

And if there were no living veterans, there were no constituents in my district to whom I can report, "Gee, I'm gonna," you know, "recommend we spend your tax dollars on a World War I memorial."

Emily Schell: I knew going in we didn't have any resources from the federal government, so we were going to have to be very, very creative in how we approached this process.

How do you tell this story that happened a hundred years ago?

How do you make it relevant to people?

Meredith: We identified legacy companies, people that had an affiliation with World War I, and we started calling them and sending them letters.

We sent CEO letters across far and wide, and we just got a bunch of noes.

Daniel: I didn't know how to be a fundraiser.

I had no idea, and one of the commissioners who was appointed by President Obama was Dr.

Libby O'Connell, and Libby O'Connell was at that time the chief historian at the History Channel.

I said, "Dr.

O'Connell, my name is Dan Dayton, I'm the executive director of the Commission, it's a pleasure to meet you," and she said, "Well, I'm gonna give you $50,000."

And I thought, "You know, this fundraising is pretty easy."

Dr.

Libby O'Connell: The thing that really worried me about the Commission, and it did for years, was the lack of funding.

I was not optimistic.

I just thought, "Really, we don't have anybody on the Commission who has super deep pockets."

male: World War I Centennial--authorized.

A short discussion of-- Edwin: We were very fortunate in recruiting some prominent national leaders like Secretary Leon Panetta, General Barry McCaffrey, Admiral Mike Mullen to make calls, make introductions to their network, to make cold calls to people who aren't in their network and say, "This is important to us, this is important to the country, please hear these people."

Michael: I basically was brought into this by a friend of mine, General Barry McCaffrey, and he and I had been involved with the Vietnam Memorial, and I'm a Vietnam veteran.

And even though it was over a hundred years ago now, it is amazing to me how many families have responded, how many families had grandfathers or great-grandfathers who fought in World War I. Philip Mazzara: The sons and daughters of the Doughboys were the World War II generation, and they had their memorial and the fundraising for the World War II memorial.

My generation had the Vietnam Memorial.

World War I was sort of relegated to the midsts of obscurity in terms of the US national consciousness.

I was initially surprised, in fact, shocked by some of the rejections that we got.

Terry: You get 10,000 noes, and then every now and then you'll get a yes.

Emily: Dan and I literally would get on a plane.

If you were interested in hearing our story, we were constantly having to pivot, constantly thinking, "Okay, what are we missing?

Is there a different angle?"

Philip: Eventually it all came together, the great idea of "could we find connection and genealogy to the Doughboys?"

And we recruited student interns to begin looking at draft cards and then military service records of the Doughboys, and that was a treasure trove.

Daniel: Everybody had to register for the draft in World War I. It was the first time we had a draft, and when you've registered for the draft and you've filled out your draft registration card, you did it in your own hand.

So I pulled one up for a leading senator, and I said, "Senator," I sort of pushed it across the table.

I said, "You might find this interesting.

This is your grandfather's draft registration card for World War I," and he shed a tear.

He just stared at it.

There are no politics when it comes to remembering those who served a hundred years ago or now.

Barry: So what we were able to do is to get to some extremely patriotic, thoughtful, private associations and business communities, and to weave in some support from the federal government, which we ought to recognize, to achieve our purpose.

Libby: That money comes from our taxes, and we should be saying, "Thank you, Americans, for supporting this.

We built this and designed it for you, and we hope you appreciate it, because you were behind it."

Emily: We launched an international design competition, and we had 350 submissions from all over the world.

Edwin: People know the story of Maya Lin and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, how she won that competition as an undergraduate architecture student at Yale University.

Edwin: One of the choices we had was to have an invited competition where we reached out to established designers, or we could throw it open and have an open-design competition, and we went one step farther and said, "You don't have to be a licensed architect."

I had this vision of getting a sheet of 8x11-ruled notebook paper from Mrs.

McGillicuddy's second grade class with a concept for a memorial that we would take seriously, and that's kind of what happened.

Joseph: I came across the competition online one day.

I was bored, and it was just sort of a rainy Saturday, and I saw the competition--knew nothing about World War I--and I went to the commission's website, and they had links to the National Archives and all of these great repositories, and instantly I was hooked and kept clicking, clicking, clicking.

And the thing that very quickly I realized was, you know, most of these guys in these photos are 19 to 25, or so.

They're incredibly young, and I was 25 at the time, and so I felt a real connection with them and wanted to be a part of telling that story in some way, and so I worked sort of nights and weekends on a design and sent it off, and completely forgot about it actually, until two months later, I got a series of missed phone calls and called this strange number back, and they said, you know, "Are you sitting down?"

And they said, "You're one of the five finalists, can you fly to D.C.

in two weeks?"

Joseph: It was my first time ever to come to Washington D.C.

I hadn't seen the park in person, hadn't seen any other memorials in person.

It was all new to me, and the very first thing I noticed was these other teams walking in, everybody in their sort of Mad Men suits with their entourage, and me, it was just me.

I'd gone out and bought a suit for the occasion, and yeah, I was trying to make a good impression on day one, and we went around the room and everybody introduced themselves, and it got to me.

Meredith: And he said, "I'm Joe Weishaar, and I just feel really lucky to be here."

Joseph: I just had a series of images photoshopped together and a concept.

And so, the commission sort of looked at that, and they said, "It looks like you've got a lot of sculpture here.

How are you gonna do that?"

I had no idea, you know, so I did what any 25 year old would do, and I Googled "sculptor," and you know, the top lists are, like, Michelangelo and all these guys who have been Renaissance sculptors.

So I said, "Okay, well, I need somebody American to do this piece," of course.

So I Googled "American sculptor," and all these guys came up, and they all had died in 1929 or earlier, and so of course, I then refined the search to "American sculptor living," and that gave me the top results of the National Sculpture Society's website, and so I just sat there with a legal pad for about four hours and wrote down names.

Sabin for some reason was with the S's, and not the H's for Howard.

He had the right vision, the right set of skills, and I basically cold-emailed him.

Sabin: It was September 14th, and he said, "Opportunities like this rarely come up.

I urge you to join in a partnership with me as a sculptor to create the sculptural aspect of the memorial," and I didn't write back.

I just picked up the phone and called him and said, "Yes, Joe, I'm in," and he was, I think, rather shocked that I responded within two hours.

Joseph: It wasn't until after I contacted Sabin that I found out that he had also entered the competition and had not made the shortlist.

Sabin: There was something in my head that kept telling me, "The project's not over," so when I got the email from Joe, I knew I was supposed to go forward, and as soon as we went to the first Centennial Commission meeting, I knew that we were gonna win.

Joseph: When we started working together, he just had this great repository of things to start drawing from immediately, and we didn't have to sit there and pitch ideas back and forth of "what does this look like?"

Meredith: We announced Joe Weishaar and Sabin Howard as the winners of the design competition in January of 2016.

Their design was unanimously chosen by our jury, and we announced it during a Commission meeting, which is an open meeting to the public, anybody can dial in and listen.

Joseph: He and his wife, Traci, were listening on the radio, and Sabin said, "You know, they're talking about a design, and it sounds a lot like ours," and all of a sudden I start getting another call.

And so I said, "Hang on, Sabin, let me put you on hold for a second, I've got this other call," and it was the "Chicago Tribune."

She said, "I just want to be the first person to congratulate you," and I said, "Congratulate me on what?"

Terry: One of those great only-in-America stories.

Here's Joe, he's an architectural student.

When his design was chosen, he was probably the most surprised person in America.

Daniel: So we had a great design, and now we needed to find a place to put it.

Mitch: Every one of these projects in Washington are very controversial.

What do you put on the Mall?

What do you put here?

Do you do it at all?

Daniel: There were a number of people who thought it needed to be on the National Mall, but the National Mall, in law, was a completed work of art.

Congress suggested Pershing Park.

Barry: For years I'd been to Pershing Park and admired it, but it turned into a trash-filled backwater right in the heart of D.C.

One of the big challenges to anything in the Washington D.C.

arena is you have to get the approval of multiple bodies, so it is a challenging process.

It's just unbelievable.

It is a tricky business, and we should be mindful of the skill with which this effort was managed.

Edwin: There are points in the process where I now look back with hindsight and say, "If I'd known we were going to have to do that, I'm not sure I would have taken this on."

Joseph: Eighteen different designs, and I don't know how many files I have saved on my computer that just say "final," like "final_(1)," like "final_(2)" because every time I did it, it felt like that should be it, you know?

"This is the best design that I've ever done, everybody should recognize sort of how great this is," and then of course the next meeting would come up and there'd be some issue and, you know, somebody would say, "Go back and do it again," and you know, that's sort of the worst feeling.

And just pushing everything off to the side, and saying, you know, "Forget what I've been working on the last three months or four months, do it again."

Libby: We were very lucky that the architect we had chosen was willing to work with us through the permit process.

That was also a process on our part, realizing there was gonna be give-and-take on both sides.

We couldn't just steamroll this through, and they couldn't just steamroll over us.

Leon: You want to know what our democracy is all about, and how it functions?

It functions because people have the patience and the dedication and the determination to try to get something done in the face of every possible barrier you can imagine.

But because there are those that have the determination to keep going, that's how we pass laws, that's how we make changes, that's how we solve problems, and ultimately it's how you build memorials.

Terry: When we went to CFA, the Commission for Fine Arts, Dr.

O'Connell presented our concept that we had modified after they made some more recommendations, and they agreed that, in principle, they would accept what we had submitted.

When we left that room it was like, hallelujah, this is going to happen.

There will be a World War I memorial in Washington D.C., in our nation's capital.

Edwin: We didn't expect it to be a $40+ million project.

We didn't anticipate the extent to which we were going to have to restore the site.

Most importantly, we did not realize what a chance we were taking on Sabin Howard, and how much we were going to ask him to extend his work.

Sabin was someone who, when he came into the competition with Joe, we looked at his portfolio and said, "Clearly this is a gifted artist."

Sabin: I was very lucky to be working with Edwin Fountain because we shared a similar vision of making a memorial that harkened back to the sculptures in front of the Capitol done by Shrady.

What we were looking for was something that had the same emotional, impactful feeling of action.

Edwin: If we had understood the magnitude of the leap from those individual, very formalistic figures, to a 38-figure dynamic composition with a narrative woven through it, I don't know if we'd have the nerve to do it.

Sabin: "The Soldier's Journey" comes from the idea of the hero's journey, and it depicts a soldier that begins at home, leaves home, enters into the battle and, from this battle, is transformed to return home, and he's an allegory for the United States, as well as a mythological man who has a representation of what we all go through in life, where we begin life, we are transformed by our life, and we return to our beginning.

Terry: As a veteran, I had experienced a number of those scenes in that soldier's journey, so I was really moved by just seeing the story, and it will be a timeless memorial.

As you approach that 7-foot-tall, 58-foot-long sculpture with five different scenes in it, if you have been a soldier, sailor, Marine, coast guard or whatever, you're going to relate to at least three of those scenes.

Daniel: It's not just the story of the soldier, it's also the story of a nation.

America didn't want to go to war.

Wilson was elected on a campaign slogan of "he kept us out of war," and the following April, he declared war based on the things that were going on in the world that he simply could not ignore anymore.

Sabin: I'm doing this interview today at the US Customs House in Battery Park City.

A little more than a hundred years ago today, the troops left New York Harbor, right outside my window, to sail across the Atlantic to uncharted territory for most of them to fight in World War I. It was a global war that transformed the planet.

I'm very proud to be a part of this, I'm honored.

Libby: You don't see things like this anymore.

It tells a story in a very traditional narrative way that has been told by the ancient Persians.

You see it in the friezes of the ancient Greeks on up to certainly the Civil War era, but today, you don't see this type of large monumental sculpture telling a story on this level.

I see the power that it has for people who see it, and it really helps talk about war to people who need to hear those words and understand it at a deeper level.

Carol: We talk about diversity being strength; women came out of the home for the first time to be able to participate in the war.

Frankly, we got the right to vote shortly thereafter as a result of their work.

African-Americans came out of the fields, in many cases.

Native Americans, in that point, then run off onto reservations, came out and participated as soldiers, as Doughboys, in World War I. Immigrant Americans, they all came together, and the rest of the world was very grateful.

Libby: We remember World War II, Rosie the Riveter fighting in the munitions factory.

Rosie the Riveter had a mother, and that mother worked in the factory in World War I. With the men on the front, they needed more women to come into the factories.

They're taking the oath of loyalty in uniform.

The Navy had a whole class.

There were thousands of women who enlisted in the Army Nursing Corps.

You see a professionalization of that career, highly skilled nurses developing new techniques for battlefront nursing.

Some of them were the Hello Girls, the telephone operators that were working for the US Signal Corps, and they really gave the best of their efforts to help with communications--which, of course, are key--all over France, as well as in Britain.

What number, please?

One moment, sir.

I'm sorry, that line is busy.

Cara Reichel: I have a question about the placement of this monitor.

Cara: "The Hello Girls" is a new American musical about the first women who served as soldiers in the United States Army.

They were bilingual French-English translators who operated telephones on the front lines of World War I. The Army put out a call for women, and they thought they might get a hundred applications, and they received 7000 applications.

Our surprising rise to fame-- a brand new name.

Hello Girls.

That's what they call us, the Hello Girls.

[applauding] Cara: All of the audiences that we've shared this story with have just been amazed that this was a bit of history they'd never heard about.

I feel like we've dropped a pebble in a pond, and the ripples that continue flowing out as we tell this little known history have been really wonderful to experience.

female: The Hello Girls connected over 26 million calls during their service.

female: As America's first women soldiers, they paved the way for women's suffrage.

female: After the war was over, they continued their fight for recognition and equality for almost 60 years.

female: Until finally, in 1977, the Hello Girls were granted veteran status by the US Congress.

Every choice we make.

We're making history.

Shaping and molding, yet slowly unfolding it onward.

Cara: The closing song of "The Hello Girls" is called "Making History," and what we're trying to communicate through that song, "Making History," is the idea that history isn't something that happens.

History is the actions of people, the choices you make.

Carol: My grandfather's name was Thomas Davey.

He was a sergeant in the American Expeditionary Forces.

My grandfather went off to fight for an ideal.

He didn't fight for what he was experiencing in his life.

He couldn't vote, he couldn't sit on the front of the bus, but he was prepared to go off and fight for democracy and the ideals that built this country and that he invested in.

He was prepared to give his life, and that is--to me, is definition of patriotism.

I mean you don't get any more profound definition of patriotism than somebody who will fight for an idea, even in spite of the realities of their current circumstance, and he and 300,000 other African-Americans did just that.

The African-American soldiers came back from Europe at the end of the war, in 1918, and they brought back a different sense of who they were, of self.

They brought back a different sense of how the rest of the world operated, because many of them had never been outside of the United States and didn't know anything but slavery and Jim Crow, and so they were able to see that they didn't have to live like that, and there was a different way.

Carol: When they did come back, there was a huge march in Harlem in which everybody wore white to say that Black lives matter, and they came back prepared to talk about the realities that they had observed in Europe, and that had a ripple effect throughout the Black community.

There are many people who say that it was their intervention, or their experiences that planted the seeds for the civil rights movement that blossomed, what, 60 years later.

They so believed in the ideals of democracy.

Bo Mazzetti: Indian people have served on a per capita basis more than any other group, starting with World War I. The Indian people who served in World War I were not considered citizens of the United States, yet they went and fought for the United States.

When you're in the military, you have a camaraderie that you can only explain if you've been in the service.

Those folks then went on to become senators or congressmen, and helped push for recognition, so in 1924, Indians became citizens of the United States.

Daniel: The National World War I Memorial really is an antidote to amnesia, being able to continually remind us about how important this war was, and what an impact it had on the country.

We had a fantastic design team, and I promised myself and them that I would not interfere in the design.

John: When Joe and Sabin and the team found out that they had won the competition and were gonna do the project, I think their first reaction was, "Oh boy, now we really have to do this," right?

Then it's a matter of rolling up your sleeves, figuring out which steps in the process are next, and starting to execute them.

This wasn't just about creating a memorial.

It was about also bringing back to life, revivifying an urban park.

So, creating a worthy World War I memorial in what needs to be a functioning urban park with the significant fabric and resources of the historic park really became the challenge.

Joseph: You have the main figure of General Pershing, the General on the pedestal, and then on the opposite side of the park, you'll have Sabin's sculpture about soldiers and the common man journey that they go through in the war, and so, we're marrying these two elements of the great man and the everyman.

And then you have the belvedere that really, you know, tells that story and ties the two together and sets the two in context of each other.

And then around it, you have this amazing landscape that really changes throughout the year, and so hopefully it really becomes this multi-seasonal thing that people have to visit different times of the year.

Libby: The NPS worked with us side by side to help us create a park that was workable.

If sometimes a design idea would come up, and they say, "Well, we tried that, didn't work."

You know, there were things that we don't think about every day, and they really helped with understanding the plantings, which we were very committed to having a beautifully-landscaped park.

Leon: To have it in a parklike setting: I just think it's good for the spirit.

You're right there on Pennsylvania Avenue, for goodness sakes, and you know, that's the heart and soul of Washington D.C.

Joseph: We've had, you know, this huge team.

The fountain technician, the stone carvers, all these people working together to pull this off.

John: No memorial has been built or has been completed in Washington D.C.

as fast as the National World War I Memorial was.

That's really in large part due to the involvement of the client, the knowledge of the people involved, and the collaboration and effort that we put forth.

Victor McCoy: I am a veteran.

I received medical discharge when I was in service.

This gives me the opportunity to fulfill, you know, my duties for the country.

If you follow the photos of the job, you can see where we started doing the demo.

You can see elements being removed, and as we started putting things back together, you can see concrete being placed, you can see cobblestones being reinstalled, you can see the sculpture wall being built.

Casey Cloonan: The pin medal text, and lots of different bronzes.

John: Every project has surprises.

The World War I Memorial had a couple.

Nicholas Albright: We did some soil sampling early on, and we found the soil to be terrible, and we had to come up with a new pile system for how we would support the loads, as well as a new supportive excavation system.

Lauren Bailes Wise: We were trying to match some historic elements, and we were surprised that this stone really hasn't changed that much, which helps us match it very closely, especially in the quantities that we need.

Casey: It's a great feeling to know that this is something that is going to last forever.

Libby: Building the memorial wasn't just building the bricks and the mortar and the fountain, and bringing the trees in.

It's also about building the education foundation.

Dr.

Matthew Naylor: One of the real strengths of the National Memorial in Washington D.C.

will be the multiplicity of ways in which people can access the story of the war, and so I think that the beauty of that is that it personalizes something which is sometimes hard to get your head around.

This war was of such magnitude, but it brings it and distills it into the story of one person, of their sacrifice, of their family, of their comrades, of the arc that they went through in leaving, in serving, and returning.

Daniel: I had one volunteer at one point.

She was quite young and had been deployed to Iraq, and I said, "Tell me why you're interested in World War I."

She said, "You know, I had friends who died in Iraq, and I had friends who came back and whose lives are forever changed by the experiences that they had in Iraq.

I don't want them to be forgotten, and I don't think we should forget the Doughboys."

Daniel: Every day at 5 o'clock, we play "Taps."

And some of my colleagues said, "You mean during the summer?"

I said, "No, I mean every day."

In snowstorms and ice storms, every day without fail at 5 o'clock we played "Taps."

Emily: For 60 seconds, everybody stops, and in a place like Washington D.C.

where everybody's always hustling and bustling around, it's remarkable.

Jari Villanueva: For 60 seconds, a bugler has the most important job in the military.

Because I'm a bugler at heart, I'm so proud of those musicians who stand out there in extreme heat, in the middle of winter.

It means that our message continues on every single day.

"Taps" that's sounded every day is not only for those who have gone before, but it also is a salute to every man and woman who have served in uniform for our country--past, present, and future.

Barry: I'd actually seen a lot of fighting.

I have no conception of the level of violence and misery that these World War I soldiers--the French, the Brits, and the Americans--had to endure, particularly given cold weather, the massive amounts of artillery, the astonishing levels of casualties in which units routinely were almost obliterated.

Matthew: In the battlefield, seeds of poppies would line the ground dormant perhaps for as long as 80 years, and during these bombardments, the soil would be turned up and then, often and tragically, nourished by the nutrients of decaying bodies.

These poppies then began to bloom.

You might see that I'm wearing a poppy today, a symbol which was soon adopted in the days after the war as people sought to make meaning out of the war, and find a way to memorialize and remember the lives of their loved ones, of people in their communities whose lives were lost or so profoundly impacted by the Great War.

John Warner: It reminds me of my father, who among thousands of other young men and a few women joined up to go into World War I. Dad was a doctor, and he was a captain.

Decorated, injured--he didn't ever brag upon it, but he wanted me to know about it and the degree of suffering.

"Flanders Field," that's a poem, because he loved that, and he would read that on Memorial Day.

John: "In Flanders Field, the poppies blow between the crosses, row on row, that mark our place; and in the sky the larks, still bravely singing, fly scarcely heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead.

Short days ago we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, loved and were loved, and now we lie, in Flanders Field.

Take up our quarrel with the foe: to you from falling hands we throw the torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep, though poppies will grow in Flanders Field."

John: He'd say, "I hope you and your generation will do everything to avoid a repetition of what I saw and experienced."

I'll remember those words.

They're riveted in my mind because we didn't, and that's what I think this memorial may do.

Joseph: It should have been built, you know, the day after the war ended.

I hope that people, you know, take some time and learn that it was done a hundred years after the fact, and they find out about the amazing people who made it happen.

Leon: When I saw that flag going up the flagpole, I stood up and saluted because it's a symbol not only of our country, it's frankly a symbol of the spirit that was involved in making this memorial reality.

That flag over that memorial is going to be a living symbol of why patriotism is at the heart of being a good citizen.

pilot: I just want to say as a--officer serving with the United States Air Force, it's a great honor to fly over this wonderful memorial with you and recognize the huge sacrifice made by the United States in World War I, thank you.

Libby: I think that the World War I generation would be very pleased with the way the memorial turned out.

Certainly the only memorial in Washington D.C.

that includes space for the contemplation of peace, and that war was truly a war with the forethought of "we were going to have peace in the world after this."

Instead, it crafted the peace to end all peace for the 20th century, so it's a very appropriate sighting of a fountain dedicated to peace to be part of a World War I memorial.

Daniel: Admiral Mullen was standing with me in front of this fountain one day, and he looked at it, and he was somewhat deep in reverie, and he said, "This is really important."

And he looked at me and he said, "In my entire military career, I had the duty to speak to families who had lost loved ones as a result of war, and I say to them, 'Is there anything I can do for you or your family?'

and they always say, 'Remember them.'"

Joseph: I think Sabin's nervous.

I get to be the excited one.

He's the one who has to watch his piece fly through the air, and I just get to hope and pray that it lands in the right spot.

Terry: Oh, it's an exciting day.

It's the day that is the beginning of the end of the process of building a World War I memorial.

We're installing the first portions of the sculpture of "The Soldier's Journey," which is the focal point of the memorial.

Edwin: I'll be honest, I'm a bit moved.

Watching that first section of the sculpture get loaded onto the wall brought out a lot of emotion.

It is very rewarding to get to this stage.

Sabin: The project began with photography in the South Bronx where 12,000 pictures were taken.

From these pictures, I created 18 different iterations.

There is no book to locate "how do you do this?"

There's no "Sculpting Memorials for Dummies."

This is like one of those things that, as an artist, you're creating, but now you're creating on a whole different level.

Joseph: The foundry who cast the bronze is Pangolin Editions in the UK, and they've been absolutely flawless, start to finish.

We try and fit the processes of the foundry to the language that the artist uses.

Rungwe Kingdon: Sabin is a real classical artist, so things are going to be really important to him, like form, like texture.

The fidelity to the expression that he's been so long capturing: that is what he needs from us.

Sabin: I'm struck by the craftsmanship, the caring for every little detail that is produced by hundreds of artists.

Rungwe: The work that we've put into this is a little thank you to the American people, that they stepped in when we needed them.

Anybody of my age will have lost either a grandparent or a great-uncle in that war.

It was so devastating to the British people, how many people died in it, and in Britain, we know that if the US hadn't stepped in at the time it did, that total would have gone up much higher.

There's something very, very powerful in the sense that allies can work together to protect freedom, to protect democracy.

That's a very powerful message, and one we must never forget.

Libby: The young dead soldiers do not speak.

Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses.

Who has not heard them?

They say, "Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope, or for nothing, we cannot say: it is you who must say this.

We leave you our deaths.

Give them their meaning.

We were young," they say.

"We have died.

Remember us."

I was a believer.

Emily: I knew it was gonna happen.

I knew that there was still a story to tell.

There are still opportunities that can continue, but there's still work to be done.

Carol: We need to make sure that the world understands why it's better to have governance by the people, for the people, and of the people, as opposed to some other way.

That was what was at stake in World War I. Meredith: This memorial represents a fulfilled commitment to military men and women everywhere who right now are serving our country.

It's a commitment to them to let them know that in a hundred years, their service will not be forgotten.

It's a commitment to my great-grandfather who served in World War I 100 years ago, he's not forgotten.

Barry: The 18-year-old young Marines and soldiers and sailors and airmen who visit that park will be reminded of the incredible responsibility they have not just to protect America, but to stand with our allies.

That's a lesson of World War I, and an argument for peace, not war.