Iowa’s monument to its Korean War veterans --- the 85,314 who served and the 508 who died --- reportedly began with a letter to the governor written in November 1984 by students at Harding Junior High School in Des Moines asking why such a monument did not exist. That may be one reason why the memorial, dedicated by then-Gov. Terry E. Branstad on 28 May 1989, seems so academic, a history lesson writ in stone.
The Memorial consists of a 14-foot gray granite obelisk and eight matching 6-foot tablets containing inscriptions that when combined tell briefly the war’s causes and consequences, it’s progress and its cost.
It is cool and elegant in its way, but remote --- somehow humanity is absent. It is informative but not especially moving. I can‘t see the lives lived and lost reflected in it.
I’m glad it’s here, but wish that somehow it could have connected us more effectively to those young men and women who served honorably, often died; who if they lived came home quietly and lived honorably among us.
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