US War Memorials Left To Rot As Fixup Funds Dry Up

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arlington-cemeteryOn the shoreline of Hawaii’s most famous beach, a decaying structure attracts little attention from wandering tourists.

A few glance curiously at the crumbling Waikiki Natatorium, a salt water pool built in 1927 as a memorial to the 10,000 soldiers from Hawaii who served in World War I. But the monument’s walls are caked with salt and rust, and passers-by are quickly diverted by the lure of sand and waves.

The faded structure has been closed to the public for decades, the object of seemingly endless debate over whether it should be demolished or restored to its former glory. The latest plan is to replace it with a beach, more practical for the state’s lucrative tourism industry — and millions of dollars cheaper, according to state and local officials. They say a full restoration could cost nearly $70 million.

The corroding monument has challenged the community to maneuver a delicate question: How do we honor those who have served when memorials deteriorate and finances are tight?

Similar debates have been playing out across the country.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation waged a 2 1/2-year fight to restore the aging Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C., when some people proposed replacing it. Far less disagreement surrounded a decision to update the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco after a powerful earthquake in 1989.

Read more at FOX NEWS.

{Matzav.com Newscenter}


1 COMMENT

  1. Israel should not accept US foreign aid because it is immoral and allows Washington to exert political pressure on Jerusalem, a lawmaker from the Knesset’s ruling party said in an interview with an American magazine published Monday.

    Deputy Knesset Speaker Moshe Feiglin (Likud) also seemed to suggest that the US was doomed to fall due to its economic woes, but that Israel’s survival was guaranteed because the country “carries moral weight.”

    “I’m totally against this [US foreign] aid [to Israel],” Feiglin told The New American, a relatively unknown publication affiliated with far-right American politics. “It cannot be when, first of all, the Americans are standing in line like two or three miles in the snow to get a job. To get any kind of aid from America when, economically, we are in a much, much better position doesn’t look moral to me.”

    Furthermore, American aid “is not in our favor, not economically, not militarily, not in any way,” the MK told the magazine’s Alex Newman. (He gave the interview last month in the Knesset, but it only appeared on Monday.) “This aid serves psychological purposes, not anything else. We are talking about 1.5 percent of our income, of what Israel is producing — we can definitely deal without it.”

    Since World War II, Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign aid, having received a total of $118 billion, most of it in the form of military assistance. Currently, Washington supports Israel with about $3 billion per year.

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