War Memorials Crumble as Funds are Spent on More 'Meaningful' Projects

Around the country, war memorials are fallling apart while funds that could be used to repair them are spent on more contemporary and “meaningful” matters.

For example, according to Newsmax, in Greensboro, NC, where the decades-old memorial to soldiers of WWI is crumbling, University of North Carolina-Greensboro professor David Wharton fears the funds needed to repair the structure will be hard to secure. He thinks that because “the war was a long time ago,” the memorial isn’t “meaningful for most people” anymore.

It seems Wharton’s concern is well-founded. In Honolulu, Hawaii, officials are thinking about bulldozing a faltering WWI memorial in order to replace it with a beach. And in Michigan’s upper peninsula, in the town of Wakefield, a building constructed in 1924 to honor WWI soldiers was demolished in 2010 after renovating it “was deemed too expensive.”

Wakefield city manager John Siira has since said a new memorial would be built, but that new memorial is officially on hold and no one knows when (if ever) the hold will be lifted.

Regarding the Honolulu memorial, Mayor Kirk Caldwell says renovation of the site would cost $70 million, while demolishing the structure would only cost $18 million, and would make room for “a new beach that would better serve residents.”