The new World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. has been under construction for more than a year. It opened Memorial Day weekend, 2004, and we drove down to see and photograph it.

The memorial sits smack in the middle of the National Mall, between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. Its design was one of the most controversial things in Washington at the time the plans were being made;  many think the sight lines between Lincoln and Washington shouldn't be interrupted. I think the designers did an excellent job of preserving them as well as laying out a lovely memorial. This photo looks west toward the Lincoln Memorial.

The memorial consists of two half-ellipses facing each other, representing the two major theaters of the war. Between the two half-ellipses is a gigantic fountain. The ellipses are formed by large granite obelisks representing the states and territories that contributed troops. This photo looks north at the Pacific section. (As I write this, I am struck by how much this town loves ellipses. I don't know why. We've more than our share of obelisks, too.)

On both sides of every obelisk is a bronze wreath.

We were struck not so much by the memorial itself as by the things people left at it. There were hundreds of mementos of soldiers who died in the war or served in it. Some were left by children of the soldiers and some by comrades. Some were left on the ledges of the obelisk of the soldier's state, and some at other places around the memorial. Visitors to the Vietnam Wall also do this, but the volume of things left at the WWII Memorial was much greater the weekend it opened. In some cases the items left were valuable -- in more than one instance I saw medals that soldiers received for war service left at the memorial.

Here's a poster left at the base of the Iowa obelisk. The flags, too, were left by visitors.

Here a Gator hat was left at the Florida obelisk.

This out-of-focus photo is of a small item I spotted on the space between two states. I don't know who Johnny Lambert is, but someone remembers him. There were a great many personal items left that made both Linda and I tear up, thinking of both the personal and the aggregate costs of war.

The stone and metal work at the memorial tells the story of the war, but not quite so well as the photographs left on the ledges.

This photo left at the base of one of the state obelisks is not of Macarthur or some other high-ranking officer. It's just a regular guy.

In the middle of the memorial there is a wall with 400 gold stars, each representing 1000 Americans killed in World War II. The words on the edge of the pool in front of it say, "Here we mark the price of freedom."

Prominently displayed in front of the wall of stars were signs announcing, "Coins harm fountains." Nevertheless, there were coins in the pool. People even threw bills into the water (not just one dollar bills, either). I wondered at the juxtaposition of people throwing money in the pool and the "price of freedom" sign.

Another small memento left at the memorial.