Their last battle

by Nicolaus Mills

"In 1987, Roger Durbin, a retired mail carrier and World War II veteran, asked his congresswoman a pointed question: "How come there's no memorial to World War II in Washington?" From that simple question sprang the long quest to create the National World War II Memorial on the Mall in Washington. The struggle grew into a seventeen-year odyssey, beginning with a seemingly uncontroversial Congressional bill and culminating in the official opening on Memorial Day weekend in 2004." "In Their Last Battle, Nicolaus Mills tells the definitive story of the monumental fight to make the memorial a reality. From arguments over its location to political stonewalling and criticism of its design, the memorial became a lightning rod for politicians, critics, veterans' groups, and others who lined up either for or against it, even as the number of surviving World War II veterans dwindled with each year of delay. The memorial's rocky progress to completion is a compelling story of Washington politics,