Jackson WWI memorial not enough, vets advocate says

A statue of a World War I doughboy stands guard in front of the Cape Girardeau County Courthouse in Jackson as a memorial to servicemen and women of the county who lost their lives in World War I. The memorial was completed in January 1925 and dedicated on Memorial Day of the same year.

Rodger Brown, president of the Trail of Tears chapter of VietNow, a veterans advocacy group, said although the memorial is a fitting tribute to the soldiers who died, Cape Girardeau needs another memorial to those who served and did not perish.

On July 4, 2006, VietNow dedicated such a memorial on the Common Pleas Courthouse lawn to honor those who served in Vietnam.

VietNow's plan to place and dedicate a World War I memorial there July 4 hit a snag when residents in the Lorimier Street area wrote a letter to the Cape Girardeau County Commission asking for a hold on the placement of the memorial. The residents asked for the hold so that concerns over the memorial's impact on the park could be voiced in a public review.

Brown said the memorial should be placed in the courtyard along with the other war monuments already there.

"It's my opinion, and one of a multitude of veterans, that if we're going to have monuments for Vietnam vets and Civil War soldiers there, why not complete it?" Brown said.

Brown said he would prefer the memorials be placed in the courtyard and that alternative locations suggested in the letter to the Cape Girardeau County Commission, such as Capaha Park and Murtaugh Park, are not appropriate.

"The whole intent of the project was to bring people to the downtown area," Brown said. "It would take away from Freedom Corner in Capaha, and Murtaugh, that's a strip of grass, not a park."

The "Octagon of Honor" that Brown's group proposes is an octagonal walkway, 26 feet in diameter, that will be bordered by memorials for those who served in World War I, World War II and the Korean War, the major U.S. conflicts after the Civil War not already commemorated on the courthouse lawn.

VietNow plans to dedicate a memorial each Fourth of July until the Octagon of Honor is complete.

Lily Monuments of Marble Hill, Mo., has already built the World War I memorial. The memorial erroneously lists the duration of World War I as 1914 to 1917. Brown said he was unaware of how the error was made and is making arrangements to correct the latter date to 1919 before placement. Fighting ended in 1918, but the Treaty of Versailles was not signed until the following year.

Brown estimated the cost of the bricks for the Octagon and the World War I memorial at $100,000, which the group has raised through donations.

pwylie@semissourian.com

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