Korean War Veterans Memorial

Did You Know?

• Samsung Electronics donated $1 million to the Korean War Memorial Foundation on October 12, 2015, for maintenance.
• The memorial's grouting needs treatment twice a year, according to foundation chairman William Weber.
• Samsung helped clean the memorial ground on October 16, 2015, as part of its national day of service.

History

Congress authorized the memorial through Public Law 99-572 on April 20, 1986, with the Korean War Veterans Memorial Advisory Board and the American Battle Monuments Commission overseeing design and construction. A design team from Pennsylvania State University won the initial competition in 1986 but withdrew after changes were required by the advisory board and reviewing agencies; a federal court case filed by the team was unsuccessful. Cooper-Lecky Architects eventually handled the design, collaborating with several designers.

President George H. W. Bush conducted the groundbreaking on June 14, 1992. Construction involved the Faith Construction Company, the Emma Kollie Company, the Cold Spring Granite Company, the Tallix Art Foundry, and the Baltimore District of the US Army Corps of Engineers. Management was transferred to the National Park Service under its National Mall and Memorial Parks group, and the memorial was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on its dedication day.

Design and construction

The main memorial takes the form of a triangle intersecting a circle. The walls are 164 ft long and 8 in thick, made of more than 100 tons of highly polished Academy Black granite from California. Over 2,500 photographic archival images representing land, sea, and air troops are sandblasted onto the wall; the mural was created by Louis Nelson. When reflected on the wall, there appear to be 38 soldiers, 38 months, and it also represents the 38th parallel dividing North and South Korea.

Within the walled triangle are 19 stainless steel statues designed by Frank Gaylord, collectively called The Column. Each statue is larger than life-size, between 7 ft and 7 ft 3 in tall, and weighs nearly 1,000 lb. The figures represent a platoon on patrol from various branches: fourteen from the U.S. Army, three from the Marine Corps, one Navy Corpsman, and one Air Force Forward Air Observer. They are dressed in full combat gear and dispersed among strips of granite and juniper bushes symbolizing Korea's rugged terrain.

To the north is the United Nations Wall, a low wall listing the 22 member states of the United Nations that contributed troops or medical support as part of the United Nations Command. The circle contains the Pool of Remembrance, a shallow pool 30 ft in diameter lined with black granite and surrounded by a grove of linden trees with benches; the trees are shaped to create a barrel effect allowing sunlight to reflect on the pool. Inscriptions list the numbers killed, wounded, missing in action, and held as prisoners of war, with a nearby plaque reading: 'Our nation honors her sons and daughters who answered the call to defend a country they never knew and a people they never met.'

Numbers of United Nations troops in the same categories appear next to those of American soldiers. On the south side are three bushes of the Rose of Sharon hibiscus plant, South Korea's national flower. A further granite wall bears the message: 'Freedom Is Not Free.'

United States postage stamp court case

The legal battle over the Korean War Veterans Memorial began when amateur photographer and retired Marine John Alli sold a snowy-day photo of the sculpture to the U.S. Postal Service for $1,500 in 2002. That image became a 37-cent stamp, generating over $17 million in sales. In 2006, sculptor Frank Gaylord hired the law firm Fish & Richardson to argue that the Postal Service had violated his intellectual property rights. The Postal Service countered that Gaylord was not the sole creator, noting federal sources had advised him to make the uniforms appear more windswept, and also claimed the work was architecture.

Gaylord prevailed in lower court on most points, but the court initially ruled the stamp was fair use, denying him compensation. He appealed that decision and won. On February 25, 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled Gaylord was entitled to compensation because he had not signed away his rights, rejecting the argument that the photo was transformative. Gaylord sought 10 percent of stamp sales; his original commission for the sculpture was $775,000.

On April 22, 2011, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims awarded him $5,000. That order was vacated on appeal, and on September 20, 2013, the same court granted Gaylord $684,844.94 in damages, including interest.