78°F
weather icon Clear

State veterans’ memorial still in f lux

Last month I wrote about a possible move of the veterans’ memorial from its long-time location adjacent to the Grant Sawyer building to the veterans’ cemetery in Boulder City.

I was incorrect in calling it the Las Vegas memorial. The official name is the Nevada State Veterans’ Memorial, as several veterans who have visited the location have noted.

The Sawyer building itself is said by some to be in disrepair, and some government offices there are considering relocating. In fact, the Nevada Department of Veterans Services has already done so. The office has recently moved into new digs on Bermuda Road in Las Vegas.

There are many veterans who are against moving the memorial, however. While as a group they have yet to come up with a new potential location, their reasoning is that they feel it should be in a more visible and accessible area so that more individuals can view it. However, there are those who say the cemetery is in fact such a location.

Boulder City Mayor Joe Hardy was asked his views on the subject. He pointed out that if the memorial is moved to the veterans’ cemetery, it would actually be placed across the street from the burial grounds on Buchanan Boulevard., on land that the city currently owns.

He said the city is amenable to turning over the land for such a project. And he feels that the location would prove more popular than its current Las Vegas site next to the Sawyer Building. (For the record, the late Grant Sawyer was a popular Nevada governor who I was fortunate to briefly meet when I moved to Nevada in 1988.

He was honored to have the building named after him and I’m sure he would be appalled to know that the edifice is supposedly in disrepair.)

Hardy said that the thousands of veterans and their families who visit the cemetery each year would also take time to visit the memorial if it were located across the street.

In addition, he said that any move should be discussed with the artist who designed the project — Douwe Blumberg.

He is quoted on the memorial’s website saying he wanted the monument to be a history lesson as well as a bonding opportunity. Designed to honor the spirit and memories of those who fought for the United States, the memorial connects the past of the nation with present audiences in Las Vegas.

By depicting the people who fought in various conflicts, the monument provides an example of what it can mean to enable connections on a personal level with events that can too often feel distant and detached.

The superintendent of the cemetery, Chris Naylor, told me that the cemetery is only one possible location under consideration for the memorial. As of this writing, the memorial has not moved.

MOST READ
THE LATEST
Sleeping in cars, helping homeless veterans

If you are a homeless veteran, would you care to sleep in an abandoned automobile, in an old vehicle with no heat or A/C?

Wouldn’t it be nice?

So the other day, Ron and I were talking about death.

Lest we forget

Over the last 200 years, life expectancy worldwide has nearly doubled. Today, many live well into their 80s or 90s and beyond.

The bumpy road to compromise

Ever since I can remember, parking in our business district has been a topic for conversation in Boulder City.

Your love from relations and relationships

How is it that humanity is becoming lonelier while the population of the planet is rapidly rising beyond eight billion people? We are talking with each other less in person, demonstrating love with our presence. Our hearts stir when we are with those we love, don’t they?

BC knows how to honor its students

For the third time since being back in Boulder City, I got to attend and cover the high school graduation.

Was that a cow that just flew by?

I had intentions of writing this month about my goal these past 18 months of gathering experiences as opposed to material things, especially as I get older.

The genie ain’t goin’ back in

My wife and I have been watching a show on Apple TV+ called “The Studio.” It’s pretty often dryly funny series, starring Seth Rogen and some other great folks including Catherine O’Hara, about a recently-promoted head of a big movie studio with Rogen as the new guy and O’Hara as his recently-deposed boss.