The largest freestanding bronze relief statue in the Western Hemisphere is nearing completion at the World War I Memorial in downtown D.C. The centerpiece of the memorial has been a decade in the making.
“I was speechless, and I’m not speechless very often. And I had been looking at it for 10 years, I knew what it looked like. I was there with the early designs,” Dan Dayton, chairman and CEO of the Doughboy Foundation, told WTOP about the nearly finished project.
The final large pieces of the 58-foot-6-inch long statue were brought into the memorial by crane over the weekend. Most of the memorial is now closed off as crews begin to weld them together to make the final statue, titled “The Soldier’s Journey.”
The piece, created by sculptor Sabin Howard, depicts a soldier through his entire journey during the war, from leaving home, to going into battle and returning to a young daughter.
“It is the story of a soldier and the story of the nation at a remarkable period of our time, when the entire country was united to a single goal,” said Dayton, whose organization has been instrumental in securing the entire memorial near the White House east entrance.
“We want to make sure that everyone who visits gets an idea and a concept about what World War I was, how important it was and the lessons we can learn from that,” he said.
Dayton said it includes every aspect of the people who sacrificed during the First World War, including Black and Native American soldiers who served, as well as the nurses who took care of the wounded and the families that had to say goodbye to their loved ones.
The memorial initially opened in April 2021 in Pershing Park, but it was missing its final centerpiece until now.
That centerpiece is now wrapped in black plastic ready to be viewed by the thousands who come to the memorial every year.
The first illumination of the statue will take place Sept. 13 at 7:15 p.m. The public is welcome and Dayton said they will have musical performances, re-enactors and even World War I vehicles at the memorial for the unveiling.
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