Supporters for a new World War I memorial in Washington are stepping up their campaign to honor those killed before the great war is forgotten.
“We are not a country that forgets those who serve, and yet in WWI we lost 116,000 Americans and we have virtually forgotten,” said retired Adm. Michael Mullen, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“It is the charge of this memorial to make sure that ends, and those that sacrificed so much, and the millions of Americans that those loses affected, are not forgotten,” he added in the fundraising appeal for the developing memorial.
He spoke at a recent event hosted by the U.S. World War One Centennial Commission aboard the USS Intrepid in New York. The commission released a new podcast from the event timed for Independence Day.
Joining Mullen was former Starbucks executive and potential 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Howard Schultz who is also an advocate for the memorial.
“This acknowledgement is obviously long overdue,” he said.
“Our nation honors the veterans of every major world war of the 20th century with a national memorial in Washington D.C. There’s one glaring exception: the veterans of WW1 — America’s first major conflict fought on foreign soil when we stood up on the world stage for the principals of liberty and self-determination. In building a national memorial we will re-acquaint ourselves with some of the most remarkable accomplishments in American history,” he added.
The World War One Centennial Commission is creating the National WWI Memorial in Washington through private donations. Groundbreaking took place last year at Pershing Park, located at 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW.
