This memorial is located near the center of York, PA on Market Street, one of the city’s busiest roads, and is next to the Codorus Creek and a popular bike path, so that it is in a good location to be experienced, yet the classical design does not encourage a lengthy visit. An innitial problem stems from the figurative elements that telegraph the proper emotional response from afar before the viewer has an opportunity to engage with it. The focal point of the memorial is a sculpture of a soldier kneeling beside the boots of a fallen comrade with his hand resting upon the dead soldier’s helmet, which is perched atop a rifle stuck in the ground where the dead soldier is temporarily buried. This information can be easily read visually, but to ensure that it is not misread a plaque explaining the image accompanies it. The mourning soldier is wearing a rifle on his back, a grenade on his front, and a helmet on his head. His head is tilted forward, eyes open and looking beyond the grave, perhaps at the viewer if the viewer chooses to stand in the way of his gaze. The expression on the mourning soldier’s face is strange and does not match his body language. It looks as though the sculptor was working from a live model who became bored with the experience. It is unsettling, but in a way that makes one question the artistic merit of the sculptor rather than the war experience of the subject.
On a separate pedestal behind the soldier stands an eagle. The eagle, an obvious symbol of the nation, is hunched and appears to be bowing to demonstrate respect, mourning, or both. Its beak is pointed directly at the ground with its wings pulled back. Close inspection of the pupils reveals that it is looking at the soldier even with its head bowed. One problem with this pose is that while eagles do not demonstrate their emotions in this way, dogs do and the gesture is one of shame. Again, this would be interesting to consider if the intent was to suggest a country grappling with a sense of responsibility for the many dead, but instead it raises more questions of artistic merit. Additionally, the mourning soldier’s arm seems anatomically incorrect. It is too long and emerges from the shoulder in an unnatural way as if dislocated, but this is most likely not intentional. It is bothersome and that is one of the problems with using representational imagery in a memorial; errors demand attention and affect the viewer’s experience. The sculpted elements are meant to communicate visually and while the sculptor’s intent can be understood given the rest of the information presented and the obvious symbols used, the limitations of the artist’s skill disrupt the potential for personal reflection. Perhaps personal reflection is unnecessary here anyway, because the memorial does not ask us to think, it tells us what to think.
The base of the main sculpture tells us, “Lest we forget. Freedom isn’t free.” The sentiment of this pithy quote is unassailable in this setting. How does one look at an image of a soldier mourning the death of another soldier and then question the assertion that our freedom was paid for by his death? To consider the necessity or wisdom of the conflict in which the life was lost would seem ungrateful and so we do not question whether lives should have been lost because the final insult to dying young would be that it had been in vain. As Noam Chomsky said, “That’s the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody’s going to be against, and everybody’s going to be for. Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn’t mean anything. Its crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something: Do you support our policy? That’s the one you’re not allowed to talk about.”
On the other side of the base is a beautifully etched image of a sun setting on a lovely beach with gentle rolling waves. There is a ship at sea, a fighter jet in the sky, and a tank on the beach with the words, “They came by land, air, and sea.” It is a strangely sanitized image considering that the base it is etched on is the implied grave of the soldier being mourned. If the purpose of a war memorial is to express unconditional respect and appreciation for veterans, especially those who died in battle, this memorial mostly succeeds in spite of the sculptural problems mentioned earlier. However, is that the purpose of a memorial? Surely we should honor those who died, but perpetuating the heroic mythology of war is not the only way to honor the dead. We can, and should honor the dead by creating a space to gather and contemplate the fullness of their lives and the actions that led to their deaths rather than separating ourselves from them by literally placing them upon a pedestal and simplifying and editing their lives to fit a heroic, militaristic ideal.
Art & Conflict 