War memorials

None of us can say thank you enough to the courageous women and men who served their country in time of war.

Last week, VietNow, an organization for war veterans who have served in the past 50 years, announced plans to erect four more war monuments on the lawn of Common Pleas Courthouse in downtown Cape Girardeau.

Rodger Brown, the organization's president, envisions building an octagonal walkway to connect all the memorials.

The lawn currently has monuments honoring Union and Confederate veterans of the Civil War and veterans of the Vietnam War, which was dedicated earlier this year. The new memorials would include veterans of the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II and the Korean War.

The county currently leases the Common Pleas Courthouse, the annex that once served as the city's library and the surrounding grounds from the city. The county is looking into the possibility of moving its offices to the old federal building a block away at the corner of Broadway and Fountain Street, which means the Common Pleas Courthouse facilities would likely be put to other uses.

Is the Common Pleas Courthouse lawn -- host to numerous concerts and weddings, and the site of several other nonmilitary commemorative markers -- the appropriate site for an array of war memorials? Is there a better place? Certainly the county park on both sides of North Kingshighway offers more land. Capaha Park already has Freedom Corner, which is used for numerous veteran observances throughout the year.

At this point, VietNow doesn't know what the memorials would look like.

This project must be carefully considered by both city and county officials before proceeding. Memorials for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars surely will follow. An overall plan for honoring war veterans is needed to replace the current piecemeal approach.