essay on national war memorial inspires me to

Essay on National War Memorial

Students are often asked to write an essay on National War Memorial in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on National War Memorial

Introduction.

The National War Memorial is a tribute to the brave soldiers of India. Located in New Delhi, it honours those who sacrificed their lives for the country.

Design and Structure

The memorial has four circles, each with a special meaning. The ‘Amar Chakra’ symbolizes immortality, ‘Veerta Chakra’ represents bravery, ‘Tyag Chakra’ denotes sacrifice, and ‘Rakshak Chakra’ signifies protection.

Significance

The memorial reminds us of the courage and dedication of our soldiers. It is a place of respect, reflection, and gratitude for their ultimate sacrifice.

250 Words Essay on National War Memorial

The National War Memorial, located in New Delhi, India, is a tribute to the brave hearts who laid down their lives for the country. Inaugurated in 2019, the memorial is a testament to the nation’s gratitude for its heroes, symbolizing respect, honor, and remembrance.

Design and Architecture

The memorial boasts intricate architecture that is both symbolic and aesthetically pleasing. It consists of four concentric circles, namely the ‘Amar Chakra’, ‘Veerta Chakra’, ‘Tyag Chakra’, and ‘Rakshak Chakra’, each representing the journey of a soldier. The eternal flame, ‘Amar Jawan Jyoti’, at the heart of the memorial, burns brightly, signifying the undying spirit of the soldiers.

The National War Memorial carries immense significance in the Indian context. It serves as a constant reminder of the sacrifices made by the armed forces. It is not just a physical structure, but a symbol of the nation’s collective memory and shared history.

The National War Memorial, with its profound symbolism and solemn atmosphere, stands as a beacon of national pride and respect for the fallen heroes. It is a place for reflection, remembrance, and gratitude. The memorial does not glorify war but honors those who gave their all in service of the nation, thereby promoting a sense of unity and patriotism.

500 Words Essay on National War Memorial

The National War Memorial, a symbol of bravery, valor, and sacrifice, stands as a tribute to the Indian Armed Forces. Erected in the heart of the nation’s capital, New Delhi, it commemorates the soldiers who laid down their lives defending the sovereignty of the nation.

Historical Context

The idea for a National War Memorial was first proposed in 1960. However, it took nearly six decades for the concept to materialize. The memorial was finally inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 25, 2019. The delay in its construction can be attributed to various political, logistical, and financial challenges. Nevertheless, its completion marked a significant milestone in acknowledging and honoring the sacrifices made by Indian soldiers.

Architectural Brilliance

The architectural design of the National War Memorial is a testament to the collective strength and unity of the Indian Armed Forces. The memorial comprises four concentric circles, each with its own symbolic significance. The ‘Amar Chakra’ or Circle of Immortality, the ‘Veerta Chakra’ or Circle of Bravery, the ‘Tyag Chakra’ or Circle of Sacrifice, and the ‘Rakshak Chakra’ or Circle of Protection, each contribute to the narrative of valor and sacrifice.

Significance and Symbolism

The National War Memorial is not merely an architectural marvel but also a poignant symbol of patriotism. The names of over 26,000 martyrs from the Indian Armed Forces, who sacrificed their lives in conflicts post-independence, are etched on the memorial walls. This serves as a constant reminder of the price of freedom and the sacrifices made to uphold it. The eternal flame, ‘Amar Jawan Jyoti’, burns brightly as a symbol of the immortal soldier, further intensifying the memorial’s emotional resonance.

Role in National Consciousness

The National War Memorial plays a crucial role in fostering a sense of national consciousness. It serves as a space for remembrance, reflection, and respect. By honoring the fallen soldiers, it instills a sense of pride and respect for the Armed Forces among the citizens. Moreover, it encourages younger generations to understand the importance of national security and appreciate the sacrifices made by the soldiers.

The National War Memorial stands as a beacon of gratitude and respect towards the Indian Armed Forces. It is a testament to the bravery and sacrifice of thousands of soldiers who laid down their lives in service of the nation. As a symbol of national pride and unity, the memorial plays a significant role in shaping India’s collective consciousness and fostering a deeper understanding of the cost of freedom. It is not just a monument but a tribute to the spirit of sacrifice and valor that defines the Indian Armed Forces.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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The Challenge of Memorializing America’s Wars

Honoring the cause while confronting and remembering sacrifice can be a complicated endeavor.

A photograph of a silhouette of a person observing the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Each Memorial Day, tourists descend on the nation’s capital to visit memorials and monuments honoring members of the U.S. armed forces who've died defending their country. For the family and friends of the fallen, the act of remembering is daily—as is their grief. This distinction between public acknowledgement and private grief is captured tangibly in the sites on the National Mall.

Often the terms “monument” and “memorial” are used interchangeably to describe the iconic sites in the nation’s capital, but there is a difference. The New York Times recently cited philosopher of art Arthur Danto’s definition to illustrate this distinction: “We erect monuments so that we shall always remember, and build memorials so that we shall never forget.” While memorials are a source of remembrance, monuments seek to celebrate the purpose, the accomplishments, the heroic. They evoke the cause. As the Global War on Terror Memorial Foundation campaigns for a site to honor those who've died in Iraq and Afghanistan, its members will likely have to grapple with these definitions in deciding what exactly it should be.

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In March, Representatives Mike Gallagher and Seth Moulton introduced legislation authorizing a study and fundraising for a new national memorial. The bill also exempts the memorial from current law, which states that a memorial can’t be authorized until at least 10 years after the war has ended. The Global War on Terror Memorial Foundation is leading the initiative. In an interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune , Andrew Brennan, the founder and executive director of the group, argued that “we have met the historic burden context,” in light of the thousands of those who have died, been wounded, or deal with post-traumatic stress. But memorializing wars while confronting and remembering sacrifice can be a complicated endeavor.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall provides a striking example of this. The wall, inscribed with more than 58,000 names of servicemen and women, has become a major attraction in Washington D.C. and plans are now well underway for an adjacent education center that will provide information on the individuals the wall records. But bringing the memorial to fruition was fraught with conflict. The tension that divided supporters of the memorial 35 years ago stemmed from two key questions: How does a nation remember its wars? How do we memorialize our war dead?

On July 1, 1980, Congress authorized the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund and allocated three acres on the National Mall near the Lincoln Memorial for its construction. The Memorial Fund, led by Vietnam veteran Jan Scrugg, the originator of the initiative, raised over $8 million with the support of nearly 300,000 individual contributors.

The design review committee selected the design of Yale University architecture student Maya Lin. Lin proposed a polished black granite wall with the inscribed names of the Americans who had died in the war. The proposed wall, with no decoration, not even a flag, provided a stunning tally of loss. Many of the early supporters of a memorial were troubled by the absence of any recognition of heroic service.

Vietnam veteran Jim Webb found it nihilistic, ignoring the honor and courage of those who served. Ross Perot, one of the early advocates of a memorial and a major financial contributor, called it a tombstone and Tom Carhart, a Vietnam veteran, described it as a “black gash of shame.”

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial leadership accommodated much of the criticism. They agreed to display prominently an American flag and commissioned Frederick Hart to design a statue that would stand nearby. With these modifications, then-Interior Secretary James Watt approved the plan. Hart’s “Three Soldiers” statue was dedicated in 1984. The 1993 dedication of the Vietnam Women’s Memorial recognized the thousands of women who served courageously in Vietnam. The wall—and the two accompanying statues—completed a site that many, including nearly all of the early critics, came to consider special, even sacred.

Today, the Vietnam Wall cries out eloquently the magnitude of sacrifice, nearly 500-feet long, marked by line after line of chiseled names. Each name, in turn, whispers the record of a single life lost, and invites its own private memorial. The ground below has been personalized by mementoes left behind—and by many tears.

The celebration of warriors and their sacrifice is at least as old as classical Greece. According to Thucydides, Pericles eulogized the Athenians who died in the Peloponnesian War as men “who preferred death to survival at the cost of surrender.” He judged them as the valiant dead who “proved worthy of their city.”

Memories of patriotic sacrifice enrich national pride: The courageous dead were worthy of their city or their country. Now the survivors must be worthy of them. It is not necessary to go back 2,500 years to Athens to affirm this. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln stood at Gettysburg, on ground still stained by death and in air filled with the stench from shallow graves, and eulogized the dead only in the most general terms. He provided no tally of cost, focusing instead on the purpose of their sacrifice. He promised, “that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion,” and assured that “we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.”

Lincoln mourned privately even as he resolved publicly. More recently, the Marine Corps Memorial in Arlington, dedicated in 1954, reflected this patriotic resolution. The Felix Weldon statue, based on the Joe Rosenthal photo of the six marines raising the U.S. flag at Iwo Jima, provided a stirring tribute to the Marine Corps—and to the World War II generation. The base quotes Admiral Chester Nimitz: “Uncommon valor was a common virtue.” There is no acknowledgement, however, of the more than 6,800 Americans who died in that battle, including three of the six men who raised the flag.

There has been a democratization of memorials since the 19th century when town squares and public plazas were marked by resolute figures, typically generals, and usually on horseback. From the Civil War onward these public places generally included a tablet or statue base that listed the community members who served—and those who sacrificed.

National memorials, meanwhile, continue to illustrate the tension between statue and base, between the several goals of heroic celebration, honoring service, and remembering loss. Dedicated in 1995, the Korean War Memorial features a striking tableau with 19 stainless-steel statues representing American troops warily crossing a field, bounded on one side with a black granite mural showing the experiences of and honoring those who served.

In the years since it was completed, Korean War veterans have worked tirelessly to include the names of those who died in this war. In October 2016, President Barack Obama signed the Korean War Veterans Memorial Wall of Remembrance Act. Now the Korean War Veterans Memorial Foundation is raising funds to add a laminated glass wall including over 36,000 names of those who died in the conflict.

The World War II Memorial dedicated in 2004, on the other hand, is monumental in a traditional sense. It includes granite pillars and arches representing the theatres of operations, bas-relief sculpture, two poles with American flags, a plaza, a pool, a fountain, and a wall with 4,000 gold stars each representing 100 Americans who died while serving in that war. * These stars are symbolic, abstract, not personal—they project the scale of loss, though not the individuality of sacrifice.

It is a memorial but it is also emphatically a monument. None of the other memorials on the Mall, completed or proposed, has sought to be so large and magisterial, traditionally monumental even.

Apart from the triumphant scale, this merging of forms is what the Vietnam Memorial became when the representational statues joined Lin’s Memorial Wall. It is what the Korean War Memorial will become when the Wall of Remembrance is completed. And it is what the Global War on Terror Memorial Foundation will be tasked with as it presses forward with its site.

Recognizing those who served is important. But to do so without honoring those who sacrificed, as individuals and not as numbers, would provide an incomplete narrative of war. It is their narrative Americans salute today. And need to remember every day.

* This article originally misstated the number of American military deaths represented by each star on the World War II memorial as 1,000. We regret the error.

School Students

CBSE Expression Series on National War Memorial for Class 3-12 Students: Submit by Mar 24

Gurjit Kaur
March 21, 2022

Submissions are invited for CBSE Expression Series on National War Memorial for the year 2022. The last date of application is 24 March.

As part of the celebration of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav (AKAM), CBSE announces the fourth Expression Series for the academic session 2021-22. The theme of the Expression Series is ‘National War Memorial’.

Primary (Class 3 to 5): Paragraph (150 words)/Painting [Topic- My tribute to martyrs]
Middle (Class 6 to 8): Essay (400 words)/Painting/ Poem [Topic- Messages that the National War Memorial Conveys]
Secondary (Class 9&10): Essay (700 words)/Painting/Poem [Topic- The National War Memorial inspires me to…]
Senior Secondary (Class 11 &12): Essay (1000 words)/Painting/Poem [Topic- If given a chance, my contribution to the National War Memorial will be..]

Participation

Schools shall organise the first level Expression Series at their end on the above theme from 15th March, 2022 to 24th March, 2022. Information of conduct of the Expression Series should be given to all students.
For participation in Expression Series events, i.e. Essays/ Paragraphs/ Paintings/Poems etc., please use participants sheet given as Annexure I or a sheet with all details as given therein.
Schools shall complete the evaluation of entries and shortlist one entry per class category for onward submission to CBSE.
Schools can submit the entries from 25th March, 2022 to 30th March, 2022 using an android phone through CBSE Expression. Series App available at Google Play store. For guidelines of the process of submission, please see Annexure II.
Each participant will get an online certificate of participation at his/her registered e-mail ID after the successful submission of entry on CBSE Expression Series App.
10 best entries of each category will be selected by each CBSE Regions for selection of winners at CBSE, New Delhi.
Three best entries will be selected at the national level. All of these best entries shall be compiled in the form of a booklet for display on CBSE website.

Call at 011- 23231070 Email: cbseexpressions2122[at]gmail.com

Click here to view the official notification of CBSE Expression Series on National War Memorial.

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essay on national war memorial inspires me to

World War I: 100 Years Later

A Smithsonian magazine special report

History | June 2022

An Exclusive Preview of the New World War I Memorial

One sculptor and his team of artists take on the epic project of conveying the century-old conflict through a massive bronze installation

By Jeff MacGregor

Photographs by Vincent Tullo

“Light is everything,” says the sculptor. And, all at once, it is.

You see light as if for the first time. Not as some condition of simple illumination, but as the maker of solids, the hand, the hammer and the chisel, the creator. You see it sifting down from the ceiling and sneaking through the glass doors, cascading from the two big windows up front, the long room filled with it in every angle and on every surface, the whole place swelling with daylight pouring through the glass bricks out back. Iron light, straw light, light bright as brass, sun-yellow light corkscrewing from the skylights to settle across every unfinished face and figure. Light gathering in the folds of the uniforms, washing the boot tops and the rifle barrels, radiant, hard as marble, soft as lambswool, painting the floors, drifting into the corners like snow, sleeping in the shadows. Light on every body—indifferent light, animating light, sanctifying light.

The sculptor is Sabin Howard. While his tools and materials suggest Howard works in clay and bronze, his true medium is light. And this sculpture, A Soldier’s Journey , years in the making, will serve as the centerpiece of the National World War I Memorial in Washington, D.C. When complete, Howard’s immense frieze will tell the story of an American reluctantly answering the call to war—a deeply personal and individual story and the grand symbolic story of the nation all at once. Across five scenes and 38 larger-than-life-size human figures, it will be nearly 60 feet long and ten feet high. And it may become the greatest memorial bronze of the modern age.

Sabin Howard is avid. Born and raised in Manhattan, in his youth he and his parents, both educators, routinely visited Italy, where his mother was born. He spent summers there with his grandparents. Back and forth, back and forth. Florence, Turin, Milan, walking museum after museum after museum. Those long cool marble hallways echoing, echoing. He spent almost as much time there as he did in the States, almost as much time in the 15th century as in the 20th. Very early, in his teens, immersed in the art of the Renaissance, he knew what he was called to and what he was born for and where his gifts were meant to take him.

a man in front of large scale scultpures

Those talents, honed for years as both student and teacher at places like the New York Academy of Art and the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and in his Bronx studio and across tens of thousands of hours of drawing and sculpting and succeeding and failing, have led him here: a converted printing plant in Englewood, New Jersey, and perhaps the most ambitious artistic commission of the 21st century.

The high forehead haloed by the Pre-Raphaelite curls, the face at rest is smooth, youthful—not cherubic, but affable. Approachable. An effect achieved in part by wire-rimmed glasses. When he tells you something, those magnified eyes search your face to be sure you understand before telling you the next thing. He is funny and serious—and modest and vain and naive and wised-up. Sabin Howard is a concert of opposites, and holds in perfect tension every imaginable trait of personality. He is placid and passionate, quiet and voluble, self-taught and well-schooled, patient and impatient, steady and mercurial, a woolly savant in thrall to the muses and a guy with a lunchbox punching a clock. The energy produced by these tensions radiates off him in waves.

Strong hands, as you would expect. He’ll push a thousand tons of clay a million miles with just his thumbs before he’s through with these panels. Barrel-chested and dressed for work in body-cut exercise shirts and board shorts, Howard is 58, but looks 15 years younger. And 15 years fitter. Sabin Howard is ripped .

He began to make his reputation 25 years ago in the art galleries of downtown Manhattan. His classic studies of the body in a time of postmodern pastiche and cerebral deconstructions of ornament and sentimentality were a sensation, and a small revolution. As the New York Times wrote 20 years ago, of a gallery show featuring his classical-style, anatomically exact nudes, “Sabin Howard, a sculptor of immense talent, has created some of the last decade’s most substantive Realist sculpture. When viewing his works, visitors may be reminded of the times when sculptors like Donatello and Rodin walked the earth.”

He sold his sculptures to museums and private collectors all over the world, sometimes making copies of the originals, and he taught art school courses, lectured online, gave private lessons. He wrote a book with his wife, the novelist Traci L. Slatton, called The Art of Life , a sort of statement of purpose, thick with luscious photos of Sabin’s work. “The spirit of art is the reflection, and also the springboard, of the spirit of humanity,” they wrote. “It shows us ourselves. In figurative art, it literally shows us ourselves, in our every dimension. It is revelatory. It reveals not just who we are, but who we have been and who we can be, in body, mind, spirit, and psyche. In this way, a great piece of art conjures magic.”

“In figurative art, it literally shows us ourselves, in our every dimension. It is revelatory.”

In 2015, the World War I Centennial Commission announced a design competition for a national memorial to the war. There was a feeling—a fear—that the legacy of the war was being lost, forgotten. The last combat veteran had died four years before at 110 years old. And though there was, already, a local monument on the National Mall, dedicated in 1931 to the District of Columbia residents who fought and died in the war, the Great War was still alone among America’s major modern conflicts unrepresented by a comprehensive national memorial in the capital.

The new site eventually chosen was Pershing Park, just off the Mall and down the street from the White House, in front of the Willard Hotel. A statue of Gen. John J. Pershing, who’d led American forces during the war, had long stood watch here, but the rest of the space was exhausted . An important element of the international competition to design the memorial included redesigning the park itself.

In 2016, the architect Joe Weishaar won the competition, selected from more than 300 entries. Weishaar is from Arkansas, and was then 25, so young he looked like your neighbor’s son home from college. “I was working full time for a firm in Chicago,” he says. “The memorial was sort of a weekend hobby for me. When everybody found out that I had won, my bosses weren’t super-happy. They felt like I was moonlighting on the side.”

But the commission appreciated that Weishaar’s design was sophisticated in serving competing purposes: It had to include an appropriately solemn war memorial, and it also had to be an inviting, well-functioning, living, breathing city park.

“You want a memorial that is respectful, and you want a park that people can enjoy,” says Edwin Fountain, general counsel for the American Battle Monuments Commission , who spearheaded the effort to erect the memorial. “Joe’s design works with the existing footprint of the park, the existing fabric of the park, the existing orientation of the park to its surroundings—that in itself was a value.”

Howard, in a separate submission, had originally paired himself with a different architect, but the committee liked Howard’s work. When Weishaar reached out to him about collaborating, he quickly signed on. You’d be forgiven for thinking that what then ensued was a battle between the artist and the memorial commission, the artist and the bureaucracy, the artist and the money. (The cost of the park update and memorial is $44 million, largely raised from private donations.) And you wouldn’t be entirely wrong. But after a contentious beginning during which every interested party expressed themselves clearly and emphatically and sometimes heatedly, everyone now mostly gets along. That everything has been a negotiation and everything has been a discussion does not mean that everything has been a compromise. Far from it.

For Howard, the process began with 12,000 photographs of models in action. Then dozens of preliminary sketches. Sometimes the models couldn’t find the pose—couldn’t understand what Howard was after. “What is the pose depicting, ” they’d ask him. “I began to realize this is a very movement-driven process,” Howard says. So he told the models to perform the action—to crouch, to lunge, to charge, to fall—and he shot the whole sequence on his iPhone in “burst mode,” which takes multiple photographs in rapid succession. “From the burst, we would extract the one pose of the 12 shots that explained the action—when you have a change occurring as you freeze a figure in time.”

Eventually, the models traveled with Howard to Britain, to a studio with a custom-built photogrammetry rig. One-hundred-sixty cameras in a 360-degree spherical arc around an elevated platform. The models, in authentic period attire, posed and recomposed and shot from every conceivable angle and captured in high-definition until, at last, Howard had 30 final drawings and a 3-D digital rendering of the tableau he sought. Forty hours a week for two years. From the renderings, a maquette, a small-scale model, five feet long, was made. Then a full-size steel-framed foam armature, milled in England and shipped over in huge sections. It’s upon this foam surface that Howard applies the clay that brings it all to life.

His life-size bronzes Hermes and Apollo and Aphrodite , all beautiful muscle and dynamic grace, are tucked into the corners of the studio, so the vibe is a sort of Greco-Roman cult of the body by way of Florence and Paris and Peloton. Someone is always doing a push-up or a sit-up or a pull-up, or spinning the stationary bike over by the heat lamp and the big warming tray of plastiline clay. The whole gang of models and assistant sculptors bike or run or swim or lift weights, so there’s exercise equipment and high-tech carbon fiber bicycle gear in every corner. Rodin and Donatello may have walked the earth, but more often than not Howard bikes to work, fast and hard, all muscle and lungs and dynamic tension on a bike as fine and sharp as a blade, clearing his head for the day’s work.

If Sabin Howard is avid, his wife, Traci, is ardent. Smart and dark-haired, she is the heart-on-her-sleeve show-runner here, the project manager and lead accountant and den mother, the writer, producer and thumbprint-by-thumbprint documentarian, the number-crunching wrangler of dogs, politicians, commission members, children, fans, journalists and seekers of the neo-Classical, neo-Realist absolute. (It is worth remembering that the Renaissance gave us not only Michelangelo but also the Medicis and Machiavelli, too. So she has her hands full.) She put her own career as a popular novelist on hold to do this. For the duration of the project, she makes sure the only thing on Sabin Howard’s plate is sculpture—and lean, high-protein meals. “The way it’s set up is, Sabin sculpts and leads the sculptors, and I do everything else.”

Her office is in the front window of the studio. Behind her, running nearly the length of the 5,000-square-foot space, is the clay rendering of what will become the huge bronze. It is at once a frieze and a bas-relief and a series of nearly free-standing figures. From left to right it tells the story of an everyman gone to war.

In the first scene, Everyman answers his call to duty. He kneels, penitent, while his wife rests her hand just above his heart and his daughter presents him his helmet. It is a family intact, in a state of holy repose. In the second scene, the husband turns away from his family, and begins his march to war. He locks arms with his fellow soldiers, joins them in step, and is pulled away from his wife. Her grip, even strengthened by worry, can no longer hold him.

In the next scene, now armed with a rifle, he beckons those behind him forward, a call to arms, while his comrades raise their weapons and hasten their steps and in the foreground another crouches to pick up his gun and rise to join them, all of it gaining momentum now, urgency, all of it leaning into that awful history, headlong, the terrible power and purpose and planetary pull of war, each man poised on the edge of his own mortality...and then the explosive rush up and out of a trench, soldiers charging forward, leaping, all muscle and grimace and courage and war cry as around them men fight and begin to fall.

Now the sorrow.

At the center of the memorial is a battlefield Pietà. The wounded and the ruined and the lost are gathered there in the arms of the nurses and their fellow soldiers. The pace of the sculpture slows. It becomes more ruminative, but no less dynamic, no less visceral. One soldier stands straight, undone, an awful stillness staring helplessly out, directly at the viewer, to some unfocused middle distance. To be witness to horror is only one price we ask our warriors to pay. This figure, expressionless, indicts us all.

The pace of the sculpture slows. It becomes more ruminative, but no less dynamic, no less visceral.

Now the nurses lift the wounded and help them back to the ranks, easing them into the march home, where they shoulder their rifles and the flag. They raise their chins in pride or defiance or resignation and despair and walk back into a world that cannot understand them and which they no longer recognize.

In the final panel, Everyman comes home. He is, of course, remade. He is a hero—reluctant, called and tested and strengthened, bearing to his people a message of order, rebirth and hope out of chaos and violence and death, in the manner of the mythos preceding us all, going back to the beginning of history. Joseph Campbell called it the “monomyth,” also known as the Hero’s Journey, a resemblance Traci first pointed out to Sabin while he was already composing the tableau, and which gave the work its title and its clear narrative core. “Sabin stumbled on it because it’s so archetypal to who we are as human beings,” Traci says.

At last, the father is reunited with the daughter. He hands back his helmet, into which she peers, divining the future in its shallow upturned pan. What does she see there?

As any work of memorial art must, it tells its own story without writerly embellishment.

claycoated foam armatures of a battle scene

“I’m hoping to make something that lets a kid, when he’s walking along the wall, experience it like it’s a movie in bronze,” Sabin says. “The scenes are changing. And the kid goes home and he’s like, ‘Oh my God, I got to see what World War I was all about.’ And he gets the idea that we’re on a journey—each and every one of us.”

Mornings in the studio are simple. Everyone in and working by 8:30. No excuses. No woolgathering. No waiting for a bolt of inspiration to strike from the heavens. There’s a deadline for every panel and a deadline for the whole project and, art or not, the work is the work. The deadlines are on a spreadsheet in Traci’s office. She gives the sculptors 700 hours per figure. “I start hassling them at 500 hours,” she says.

The planning and the design and the drawings and the photographs are long finished. This is a manufacturing process now. There are three sculptors working at once, often in three different parts of the big room. Sabin. Charlie Mostow, mid-room right now, at work on a leg, is the first assistant. The second assistant sculptor position has been, well, dynamic , and a source of some upset. Today, though, all is peace and perseverance over there by the main frieze. Sabin is in a corner up front by the office, hard at work.

The project is being documented minute by minute on YouTube and Instagram. “Capturing the soul in sculpture is about capturing movement that is pushing out from the body,” Howard tells the camera.

Mark Puchinsky, right now modeling that leg for Charlie, is reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay . In order to hold the pose, Mark is propped on a padded stand built for the purpose. This is true for all the models and most of the poses, some of which are torturous and might need to be held off and on for hours. Lunging, running, screaming, jumping—every act must be seen in every light and from every angle. A two-dimensional drawing or a photograph won’t do. Every fold in every garment requires a live model. When Mark strikes the correct angle of ankle, calf and thigh, the uniform covering his leg is artfully draped and held fast with clothespins for the length of time required to reproduce it in clay. What’s really being sculpted is the muscle beneath the drapery. The effort. The vigor. The flesh . That, Howard says, is what creates “tension and force and ultimately emotional drama, so the motion creates emotion.” This leg—every leg, any leg—might take weeks of incremental attention from each sculptor.

While not improvisational, the process here is adaptive. One of adjustment and counter-adjustment. Every inch of that giant sculpture will be made and remade. Although the foam core armatures, bearing the real-time facial expressions of the models from the photogrammetry shoot, came from England with a thin layer of sculpting clay already applied, it’s the final layer, applied here, by hand, one small bead at a time—that last millimeter of plastiline—that breathes vitality into the piece. It’s where the details are. Where life is.

The studio is filled with tools for moving and removing clay. Spatulas as delicate as medical instruments, razor blades and calipers and scrapers and smoothers, wire loops and wire ribbons, rakes and tongs and fettling knives. But mostly, it’s thumb work. A small gesture, a delicate pressure, one smooth inch at a time.

Thus does the leg from an early photograph become the leg in a drawing become the leg in foam on the armature become the leg in clay—until becoming at last the leg on the bronze, the leg they’ll see in Pershing Park 100 years from now, unique in the world, full of life and purpose.

This foam core armature used for sculpting

While the sculptors work, it is as quiet as a library. Quieter. Madeleine does her homework at the big table in back. She’s Sabin and Traci’s daughter. She’s 17 now. When she modeled for the girl in the sculpture’s first and last panel, she was 11. During the early phases of the pandemic, everyone here, including Maddie and the dogs and every model and sculptor, was part of a quarantine pod. So the spirit here is not only that of a Renaissance-era Florentine workshop, of master and apprentice, but of extended family. It’s quiet, but not sleepy. There’s plenty of coffee and every kind of tea. Lots of music, sure, but it’s all ear buds and headphones, so what you hear might be the thin whisper of a melody as if from the bottom of a well. It is rare to hear a phone ring. People mostly walk outside to talk on the phone.

The Great War changed everything. It rewrote global treaties. It redrew the Middle East. It hastened a revolution in Russia. It moved the United States—reluctant and isolationist—to the center of the world stage. It solved the problems of the 19th century by creating the problems of the 20th. As the last act of the Industrial Revolution, it industrialized killing. It was an inglorious, mechanized war wrapped in the Victorian language of valor.

That dissonance helped break art into a million pieces. Poetry, music, painting, movies, novels—none of it was ever the same. Jazz, Joyce, Yeats, Stein, Proust, Millay.

“In all my dreams before my helpless sight / He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning,” the English poet Wilfred Owen wrote of the poor comrade in arms who was too slow to pull on his gas mask.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,— My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori .

“It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.” The lie that cracked open the world. Grosz, Dix, Duchamp, Prohibition, bathtub gin, Gatsby, the League of Nations, the Red Scare. A broken, vengeful Germany. Atonality, anti-melody—every abstraction came to crowd out the representational, the romantic, the sentimental.

Ironically, it destroyed the very art Sabin Howard seeks now to restore. It was an end to earnestness. There is of course a whole school of public memorial trafficking only in earnest cliché, the one that honors “honor” and glorifies “glory.”

But that’s not what Howard is after. “What I want is to make something relevant to our age, to find the thread that runs through humanity—that human beings can reach great heights, and they can sink to the level of the animal.”

In a world that is now unreachably distant and suddenly no larger than a laptop screen, there still exists a need for monumental works of art meant to move the human heart and mind not only by their excellence but by their very scale.

bronze and clay sculptures sit in a room

“He has reverence,” Traci says. “That’s why he’s not a postmodernist. He wanted to make the figures compelling, engaging, emotive, expressive. Not just make something visually pretty—but engage people so that they can enter into that experience of reverie and reverence.”

The First World War cut a trench in the earth into which a whole generation disappeared. The war to end all wars certainly did not, instead setting loose a century of geopolitical confusion, violence and misery that plagues us to this day. In every era we are insufficient to our own humanity, and every war memorial reckons to settle a debt we can never repay. But the best of them reach out not only in space, but across time to offer us connection and catharsis. In this way every war memorial aims to heal.

Outside this studio, everywhere howling all around us, is a global pandemic—and territorial incitements and radical politics and sedition and violence and panic—just as at the time of the First World War.

In here though, only art. And lunch.

“Let’s talk.”

“Let’s talk about art.”

“Let’s argue about art.”

But they don’t, at least not much. They agree about most of it, about why they’re all gathered here. This is the communal lunch at the studio, and the conversation bends to the work, and from the work to the craft, and from the craft to the practice, and from the practice to the art, and from the art to Art with a capital “A.”

They cook for themselves in the kitchen they built along one wall. As many calories as this team burns, the menu here runs to a high-volume midday meal of proteins and starches served family-style at the refectory table in the back. Real training camp stuff: great steaming bowls of ziti or rigatoni; lean meat and sweet potatoes and salads; platters of chicken or beef or fish, spooned out over a bed of risotto.

“Pass that pork roast.” “All you ever have is the process . You can’t depend on the result. Not the finished piece or the praise or the fame or the money...” “ Especially not the money. May I have the salt, please?” “Or the fame.” “So you have to concentrate on the act . Not the art or the outcome. Not the praise or the applause. The gesture. You have to love the doing .” “Thousands and thousands of thumbprints every day. Every turn...” “...exactly...” “...of the modeling knife or the spatula...” “...finding the pose. Holding the pose...” “... that’s what you have to love.” “You honor the art by showing up every day and doing the work. Putting in the hours.” “Punch the clock like any other job.” “That’s the discipline...” “...and the thing most people don’t understand.” “Inspiration is the least of it.” “We have a responsibility...” “...not just to the art, but to the history.”

Every piece of gear in this studio is authentic. Every helmet, every uniform, every rifle. Every bandoleer and gaiter and collar, every canteen and map case and cartridge. Now every piece must be remade —first in pencil, then clay, then bronze—becoming not a quartermaster’s inventory but a work of art. Art, which is a truth surpassing reality, requires in this instance every detail, every measure be accurate. But there can be a paralysis in perfectionism, too. So Howard works not only with grace and the persistence of artistic obsession, but with the disciplined, determined urgency of a manufacturer on a tight deadline.

When each scene is done—when the final millimeter of clay on each grouping of figures has been molded and remolded—it is shipped back across the Atlantic in great big sections in a container built for the purpose, to Pangolin Editions, a foundry beloved by name-above-the-title artists from the moment it opened in 1985. So far, two completed panels—Figures 1 through 20—have been shipped to the foundry.

The casting process, now 6,000 years old, is as simple as fire and as complex as a human heart. First, sculpt a beautiful, “heroic size” statue out of clay. (In this case, sculpt 38 of them.) Now ship it to England in that specially designed container. Tom Woodman-Povey, project manager at Pangolin, sums up the process this way: You make a “negative,” a reverse of the sculpture. Then you make a “positive,” a wax reproduction of the original. Then you make another negative, based on the wax reproduction, an empty vessel to receive molten bronze. Finally, you make another positive—the bronze sculpture itself. “The process is pretty traditional,” Woodman-Povey says, with British understatement.

You make the first reverse mold by spraying the whole original statue with a layer of silicone rubber. Once it sets, you seal and stabilize it in a hard fiberglass jacket. Take the original sculpture away, and divide the silicone mold into smaller pieces for casting, finding the least conspicuous spots for cuts—an underarm, a neckline, a wrinkle in a uniform.

Fill the reverse mold with melted wax to create the reproduction, reintroducing any detail lost in the first step. This requires a team of specialists working with brushes and what look like heated dental tools. Plumb the sculpture with a Rube Goldberg lattice of runners and risers and sprues and gates and vents. These will allow you to fill the final mold with molten bronze. Now dip the contraption in a ceramic slurry again and again.

Heat the mold crazy hot. The wax inside melts and runs off—hence “lost wax casting.” A perfect reverse mold remains.

Fill that mold with molten metal—in this case, 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit or so. Once cool, crack the mold and remove the bronze. Trim and smooth every piece to the millimeter. Repeat the process more than 200 times. Weld every perfect part into a perfect whole. Burnish and patinate and apply wax to color and protect. Install.

Back in Englewood, the work continues. The next panel, Figures 21 to 28, will be sent to the foundry in mid-September 2022. The harrowing battle sequence is nearly complete, but the longer journey is far from over.

Only time and history will have the authority to judge Sabin Howard’s work. As a matter of craft, as an act of artistry, it is indisputable. But as a work of art, a thing beheld, is it an act of radical return? Will it reanimate and redefine figurative art for this still-young century? Will it create a new art for a new age?

As a memorial commission, will it inspire? Will it teach? Will it move future generations to search their hearts? To work for peace? Every war memorial is a balancing act between glory and warning. Does it merely honor the old lie? Or can it sing out the awful truth of sacrifice?

Michael Kimmelman, architecture critic for the New York Times , suggests that memorial art is most interesting when viewed as a reflection of a process. “The debates about what it should look like, where it should be, and what it represents—that is, in fact, the process of remembering, of memorializing. To the extent that a memorial later becomes just a sculpture in a park, part of the furniture of a city, it’s no longer doing that job. But what makes memorials so interesting is the way they are engaged in a public process, and provoke a public debate. And the longer that takes place, the more, in a sense, successful that memorial is.”

When not exhausting himself on his bicycle, Sabin Howard likes to walk in the woods. He’ll do this at his place up in northern Connecticut. The silence helps quiet his mind. More important, he sees again there the unity of all things—not just forest, not just trees, but the harmony of sun and sky and water and earth, of canopy and understory and roots. Everything in concert.

Like Howard’s interdependent forest, art is not something separate from history or humanity or memory or society. It is the tangle of those things, the interrelatedness of those things, the harnessing of the collision of those things in process and in practice breathing life into one new thing. Thus in art’s wholeness, Howard sees his own work.

The best of these inspire catharsis and gratitude, and remind us of our common humanity.

If it is impossible to judge a work of art by its intentions, it is impossible to judge a war memorial by anything else. The best of these inspire catharsis and gratitude, and remind us of our common humanity. The worst are anodyne costume drama, sentimentalizing nationalism and sensationalizing violence.

But no work of art adequately conveys the horror of war. Not The Iliad , not War and Peace , not All Quiet on the Western Front . Maybe Picasso’s Guernica comes closest in our own time.

Arguably the greatest war memorial in American history fits in a vest pocket. It reads, in part:

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

But even the honored dead are still dead, only dead, and the dead forget everything.

Remembrance, on the other hand, is the business of the living. On April 16, 2021, a First Colors ceremony is held to raise the flag above the new Pershing Park.

It’s a soft spring day, pandemic quiet, in Washington, D.C. The program is largely a video presentation, hosted by the actor and veterans’ advocate Gary Sinise.

The geometry of Weishaar’s new park is inviting, every angle clean, every sightline pleasing and modern. There is a military band in the park, and “To the Color” is played and the flag raised. Then the bugler blows taps and breaks every heart. Live taps will be played in Pershing Park every day at 5 p.m. The sculpture will be installed in 2024.

Sabin Howard keeps working. “To me, art represents culture, and I want to be represented by something that elevates our human spirit. When I was a little kid, and I would walk around museums, or go into a cathedral, my feelings would change, my internal feelings . That’s what I want to show to others.”

Until then, a long rendering of the final living bronze stretches huge and beautiful above the fountain and the pools where the great memorial will shimmer. Completed figures are shown as photographs; those still to come are drawn exactly to scale. So the sculpture is both there and not yet there, present and absent, as are the soldiers and the wives and the daughters and the nurses, past and future, here but not here, the wounded and the lost, the heroes and the ghosts, the fallen and the risen and the living and the dead, and the light is fine and bright and everywhere around them.

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Jeff MacGregor | | READ MORE

Jeff MacGregor is the award-winning Writer-at-Large for Smithsonian . He has written for the New York Times , Sports Illustrated , Esquire , and many others, and is the author of the acclaimed book Sunday Money . Photo by Olya Evanitsky.

Vincent Tullo | READ MORE

Photographer Vincent Tullo, who is based in New York, focuses on portraiture.

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National War Memorial

Article by James H. Marsh

Updated by Nicki Thomas

Published Online November 7, 2011

Last Edited March 4, 2015

The National War Memorial in Ottawa was originally built to commemorate Canada's sacrifice in the First World War (1914–18). It now honours all of Canada's war dead. Sacrifices made in the journey from war to peace are symbolized by a series of bronze figures emerging through a great arch. Overhead, two figures symbolize peace and freedom.

'Sacrifices and Heroism'

A national memorial in Ottawa was proposed by the government of Prime Minister Mackenzie King in 1923. The opposition supported of the idea but criticized the cost. In response to his opponents in the House of Commons , King said, “When a nation loses what is signified by its art it loses its own spirit, and when it loses the remembrance of the sacrifices and heroism by which it has gained the liberty it enjoys, it loses all the vision that makes a people great.”

The 1925 competition to create the monument was open to architects, sculptors and artists living in the British Empire or allied nations, and to those who were British subjects by birth. The budget was advertised as $100,000. According to the competition regulations, the monument was to be "expressive of the feelings of the Canadian people as a whole, to the memory of those who participated in the Great War and lost their lives in the service of humanity."

From the 127 replies (66 from Canadians), the committee chose the entry of Vernon March, a British sculptor. He had completed other noted sculptures, including the Samuel de Champlain monument in Orillia, Ontario.

March's winning design —“the Great Response of Canada” — comprised the bronze figures now seen emerging through an archway. March died in 1930 with the work unfinished, but his siblings completed the project. Canadian officials inspected the work and made several changes to the figures to reflect authentic Canadian uniforms and equipment.

The finished figures, cast in England, went on public display in London's Hyde Park for six months in 1933. The contract to build the granite archway was only granted in 1937, following years of bickering in Ottawa over its location.

Confederation Square, at the intersection of Elgin and Wellington streets — Mackenzie King's preferred location — was finally chosen as the memorial site. A Toronto contractor was hired to beautify the area with stone walkways and terraces. On 21 May 1939, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth dedicated the memorial in a public ceremony during the first visit by a ruling Canadian monarch to Canada.

The impressive structure includes 22 bronze figures marching through the archway. Leading the way (in a hierarchy approved at the time) are infantrymen, a mounted cavalryman, a mounted artilleryman, followed by an aviator, a sailor, a sapper, a forester, a stretcher-bearer and nurses, among others.

In 1982, the Memorial was rededicated to honour, along with veterans of the First World War, those who served in the Second World War (1939–45) and the Korean War (1950–53). On Remembrance Day , 11 November 2014, the monument was rededicated to honour all who had served Canada in wartime. The federal government announced that the dates of the South African War (1899-1902) and the military mission to Afghanistan (2001-2014) would be added to the memorial, along with a new inscription: "In Service to Canada."

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

In May 2000, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was added to the memorial. The remains of this unidentified Canadian First World War soldier were exhumed from Cabaret-Rouge war cemetery in France, close to Vimy Ridge , and flown to Canada where they lay in state on Parliament Hill before being interred in the newly constructed tomb at the base of the National War Memorial. The tomb has since become a touching focus of the annual 11 November Remembrance Day ceremonies.

The Tomb was the scene of a violent attack on 22 October 2014, when a lone gunman, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, shot and killed army reservist Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, who was standing on ceremonial guard at the Tomb. After shooting Cirillo, Zehaf-Bibeau went on a brief shooting spree inside the Centre Block of nearby Parliament Hill, where was shot dead by security officers.

Collection: First World War

Think Like a Historian: The Battle of Vimy Ridge

External Links

National War Memorial & the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier An infographic about the historical significance of the National War Memorial in Ottawa. From Public Works and Government Services Canada.

THE MEMORY PROJECT Website for The Memory Project, an extensive collection of recorded interviews with veterans from all branches of the Canadian Armed Forces. See also digitized artefacts and memorabilia related to the Second Word War and Korean War. From Historica Canada.

The Royal Visit Check the 32 minute mark of this video to view the unveiling of the National War Memorial by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1939. From the National Film Board of Canada.

The National War Memorial An overview of the history and symbolism of the The National War Memorial in Ottawa. From Veteran Affairs Canada.

Essay on If given a chance, my contribution to the National War Memorial will be

Essay on if given a chance, my contribution to the national war memorial will be for class 11, 12 (sr. secondary).

National war memorial has always been a special historical monument to my views from which I got to know about famous freedom fighters and national soldiers. Their struggle, sacrifice and contribution inspire me to a great level that I want to do something significant for my own nation. Since childhood I was unable to grow my interest in learning history as I thought it is filled with raw facts of some past events. But after experiencing the real journey of the super heroes from our country I have increased my interest to know the history behind all past events. My parents, teachers and myself are very happy after seeing the drastic change in studying history which fills my heart with utmost satisfaction. As a students, I also want to suggest my all friends and junior students to start reading history with great enthusiasm from the beginning. It will be helpful for not only enhancing the knowledge of past events but also it will develop out personality by feeling it with great values.

As a student, I would suggest to understand the deep knowledge that lies within the historical monuments and buildings. We all read the historical facts within textbooks of history since early level which do not give us much enthusiasm to learn more. But we get acquainted with the original facts with related examples and pictures we get a different level of interest that help us to remember all things deeply. As a result, we grow interest to study historical facts more and develop our moral values.

National war memorial is such significant historical monument that not only conveys the message of struggles of freedom fighters but also inspires us to know about the historical facts with real examples. As a direct viewer of national war memorial I would suggest to visit all corners of the museum and read the facts that hidden in it. If I am given a chance to contribute in the national war memorial then I will really inspire all people near us to visit the memorial once. I will motivate them by sharing my experience and journey to visit the entire memorial with elaborate description. I can promote the significance of building such monument and keeping it original with hard work by long years for representing it with picturesque examples. All people from children to adult citizens will feel inspired after taking a journey to the national war memorial.

When I was visiting my journey I kept noting all detail information within my notebook for recollecting memories and learn from it in future. I will show my friends with elaborate description that will definitely inspire them to visit the national war memorial for at least once. I will suggest my views of protecting the valuable information, things and facts with utmost care. I will discuss my suggestions of innovating ways to represent the historical facts in an innovating form among the visitors that will definitely catch their attention.

It is such a fact of great pride and honour that people of foreign countries are also interested to visit our national war memorial. Not only country people but also citizens of other foreign countries are greatly mesmerized by the sacrifice, dedication, struggle of freedom fighters to their own nation. It fills our hearts with ultimate satisfaction and glory that we live such a beautiful country which is full of cultural heritage and historical facts. If we inspire ourselves to protect our historical monuments then our nearby people will definitely grow positive effects from it. They will learn how to embrace our cultural heritage, grow love for our motherland. It is our responsible to encourage other people about knowing the historical facts that lying behind the monuments and its events. As I have grown my moral valueEssay on – If given a chance, my contribution to the National War Memorial will be (1000 Words) for Class 11, 12. This Essay is also for any Competitive level Mains exam aspirants.s, dedication, perseverance, belonging to our country I am sure that other people who will visit the national war memorial will develop their minds in such a prosperous way.

A War Memorial means a structure that is built for giving honor and respect to the soldiers who were killed in a war. It gives us a reminder of their sacrifice for the nation. The National War Memorial in India is a national monument which is built to give honor and remember soldiers of the Indian military who fought in armed conflicts of independent India. The armed forces personnel were killed during the armed conflicts with Pakistan and China as well as the 1961 war in Goa, Operation Pawan and other operations such as operation Rakshak. Their names are inscribed on the memorial walls in golden letters. The National WarMemorial in India consists of 4 concentric circles which areAmar,Veerta, Tyaga and Suraksha Chakra. It is 15 meter tall central obelisk with the eternal flame, branch and stone murals, graphic panels and busts of the 21 ParamVeerChakra awardees. The memorial was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi near India gate, New Delhi in the year of 2019. This is India’s first National War Memorial dedicated to soldiers who served during the India-China war 1962, India-park war in 1947, 1965 and 1971, the Kargil conflict in 1999 and Indian Peace Keeping Force operations in Sri Lanka.

If given a chance, my contribution to the National War Memorial will be to sacrifice my life for my nation. I would fight till my last breath to kill the enemy. I would generate courage among the other soldiers. With other soldiers, I would root out the enemy. After killing enemies, I would blow our national flag. Our national flag would be the highest in every country. After coming from war, I would tell the children about the concept of war and encourage them to serve themselves for their nation. And whenever my nation would tell me to go in a war, I would go and I would be always ready to serve my nation.In past our freedom fighters fought against the British rulers. Many Indians lost their life during the protest against the British rulers. But our freedom fighters wear very rigid in their aim.Their one and only aim were to free our country from their hand. Their sacrifice we can never forget. I will take inspiration from them. The love for my nation would encourage me to fight again and again and help me to root out the enemy and if I would die in a war, it would be the most honorable moment of my life because everyone does not get this chance to sacrifice his life for the nation. Boxing my dead body, they would send that to my home. I know my family would cry a lot but they would tell them about my word and they would also tell them that I gave my best and was fighting till my last breath. They would tell more about me. After that they would give my medals which I own in my life for the nation. I had the zeal to kill the enemy and had enough courage to root out the enemy. Besides these,they would also tell that my contribution to the National war would be most important. The people who would be there besides my body they would also hear how I sacrifice my life for the nation. They would be inspired by my story and my story of sacrificing life for nation would reach out to the every people like our freedom fighters.

According to me to get a chance to serve own nation is a great opportunity. All our freedom fighters and soldiers get this opportunity to serve own nation. We should always give respect to them. Because of all the soldiers and freedom fighters, we are safe today. They inspire us very much. Their spirits always inspire us to fight in every situation. If I get a chance to serve my nation, it will be a great opportunity for me.

For more Essay like If given a chance, my contribution to the National War Memorial will be, Students and Children can click this Essay link – Click here

How Do We Remember?

First World War Veteran at base of Vimy Memorial where 11,285 names are inscribed in the stone.

On November 11, especially, but also throughout the year, we have the opportunity to remember the efforts of these special Canadians. In remembering, we pay homage to those who respond to their country's needs. On November 11, we pause for two minutes of silent tribute, and we attend commemorative ceremonies in memory of our war dead.

Following the First World War a French woman, Madame E. Guérin, suggested to British Field-Marshall Earl Haig that women and children in devastated areas of France could produce poppies for sale to support wounded Veterans. The first of these poppies were distributed in Canada in November of 1921, and the tradition has continued ever since, both here and in many parts of the world.

Poppies are worn as the symbol of remembrance, a reminder of the blood-red flower that still grows on the former battlefields of France and Belgium. During the terrible bloodshed of the second Battle of Ypres in the spring of 1915, Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, a doctor serving with the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps, wrote of these flowers which lived on among the graves of dead soldiers:

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. John McCrae 11

The flowers and the larks serve as reminders of nature's ability to withstand the destructive elements of war by men, a symbol of hope in a period of human despair. In Canada, traditionally the poppies which we wear were made by disabled Veterans. They are reminders of those who died while fighting for peace: we wear them as reminders of the horrors of conflict and the preciousness of the peace they fought hard to achieve.

The National War Memorial, Ottawa.

The two minutes of silence provide another significant way of remembering wartime while thinking of peace. Two minutes are scarcely enough time for thought and reflection. As we pause and bow our heads, we remember those brave men and women who courageously volunteered for the cause of freedom and peace.

For those who lived through these wars, remembering means thinking of comrades. It evokes memories of men and women who never returned home. Those born after the wars might picture the youthful soldiers who eagerly joined up from high schools, businesses and farms across the country, only to meet death while fighting against the enemy. They may imagine the anguish of a man leaving a new wife, a young family, an elderly mother. The important thing for all of us to remember is that they fought to preserve a way of life, Canadian values, and the freedom we enjoy today and often take for granted. Remember that the silence is to honour their sacrifice and memory.

There are memorials to commemorate the service of Canadian troops in Canada and overseas. The National War Memorial in Ottawa was originally designed to recognize those who served in the First World War. It has been rededicated to symbolize the sacrifice made by Canadians in the Second World War, in Korea, and in subsequent peacekeeping missions. The National War Memorial symbolizes the unstinting and courageous way Canadians give their service when values they believe in are threatened. Advancing together through a large archway are figures representing the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who have answered the call to serve; at the top of the arch are two figures, emblems of peace and freedom.

Beny-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is located next to the National War Memorial and contains the remains of an unknown Canadian First World War soldier who was exhumed from a cemetery near Vimy Ridge. The Tomb and its Unknown Soldier represents all Canadians, whether they be navy, army, air force or merchant marine, who died or may die for their country in all conflicts—past, present, and future.

The Books of Remembrance which lie in the Memorial Chamber of the Peace Tower are another record of the wars. In addition, most cities and towns across the country have dedicated a monument, a building, or a room to their native sons and daughters who gave their lives. These commemorative locations are an enduring record of the losses suffered by communities as Canadians went forward to fight for what they believed was right.

One day every year, we pay special homage to those who died in service to their country. We remember these brave men and women for their courage and their devotion to ideals. We wear poppies, attend ceremonies, and visit memorials. For one brief moment of our life, we remember why we must work for peace every day of the year.

Essay On The National War Memorial Inspires me to die for the country in 500+ Words

Essay On The National War Memorial Inspires me to die for the country

"Do not ask what your country can do for you, however, ask what you can do for your country."

As we all know, the national war memorial is a monument in India's capital, Delhi. It was built to honour the sacrifices of armed forces who sacrificed their everything for this country in different wars such as Kargil War, War with Pakistan, etc.

The names of those soldiers who were killed during the aforementioned wars are inscribed on the war memorial walls. It is said that almost 25,942 names are inscribed on it. These names are inscribed with golden letters on it.

The national war memorial was inaugurated by the Prime minister of India (Narendra Modi) in 2019 on February 25. The monument is a symbol of courage and determination, sacrifice and truth , protection and security.

The national war memorial project was sanctioned in the year 2015. And its construction was started in the 2018 & in just one year it was built & inaugurated completely.

The national war memorial is a testimony of sacrifices of brave soldiers who laid their lives down for this country & for its countrymen. They fought vehemently against Britishers. They did not care about their lives. They were just adamant not to surrender before the Britishers.

The national war memorial represents the courage of the soldiers who sacrificed their lives. It shows their sprit to fight for the justice and equality.

The national war memorial awakens my sense of patriotism. It ignites the sense of responsibility in me for my country. It encourages me to do something great for my country like the soldiers who laid their lives down for the nation. It teaches me not to bow down infront of injustice.

I will be honoured If I get a chance to sacrifice my life for this country. That would be one my greatest achievements of my life.

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A chapter on National War Memorial ‘A Homage to our Brave Soldiers’ included in NCERT curriculum of Class VII from this year

A chapter on National War Memorial - ‘A Homage to our Brave Soldiers’ - has been included in the NCERT curriculum of Class VII from this year. The objective of this initiative, jointly undertaken by Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Education, is to inculcate the values of patriotism, devotion to duty and courage & sacrifice among school children and increase the participation of youth in nation building.

The chapter highlights the history, significance and concept of National War Memorial (NWM), in addition to the supreme sacrifice made by the bravehearts of the Armed Forces in the service of the nation post-Independence. In the chapter, two friends exchange letters and share their feelings of gratitude for the freedom they enjoy due to the sacrifices made by the bravehearts. Deep emotional impact and connect, which arises in minds and hearts of the children as they visit the iconic monument, have been brought out creatively by the authors of NCERT.

It may be recalled that Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi had dedicated the NWM to the nation on February 25, 2019 in New Delhi. It was set up to inculcate a sense of sacrifice & national spirit among the people and pay a befitting tribute to the brave soldiers who laid down their lives defending the nation.

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Poem On The National War Memorial Inspires me to

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My Tribute to every martyr, who gave his life for nation easily. Their struggle we can never forget, because of them we are safe today.

My every breath and each heartbeat dedicate to the martyrs.

Your fierce spirit awakens us your courage strengthens us, to stand for right, to fight for right.

your perseverance will be endeared always in our heart, your honor will be held as high as the sky. your sacrifice will never go in vain.

Some facts about National War Memorial which inspires me

National War Memorial is an Indian national monument built to honor and remember soldiers of the Indian military who gave the supreme sacrifice in armed conflicts of Independent India.

Almost 60 years since it was first proposed, India’s National War Memorial was unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 25, 2019.

The National War Memorial and Museum near India Gate will honor the sacrifice of 25,942 soldiers who died in the service of the nation since Independence. The memorial will be a “national center for civilian engagement and reverence for the forces”.

This is India’s first National War Memorial for the fallen soldiers in the 1962 war with China, the wars with Pakistan in 1947, 1965, 1971, and in Kargil in 1999, and in overseas operations such as those by the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka.

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