Schwartz 1 Michael Schwartz Professor Warwick English 155 6 November 2006 Proposal for the Los Angeles County Public Servant Memorial A monument to the numbers of police officers, firefighters, and military personnel who gave their lives in the line of duty is a much needed monument. People take everything they sacrifice for granted and that needs to change. The LA County Public Servant Memorial does just that. It is meant to remind the average person of the great sacrifice made by our police, fire, and military agencies. The memorial will honor all those lives given in the line of duty if they were employed by Los Angeles County, one of the many municipalities located within the county, or their home base was located within the county. Everything has a purpose, and this monument is no different. Its general purpose is to pay respect to the numerous fallen peace officers, firefighters and soldiers. Every aspect of the memorial has a purpose that furthers the overall goal of remembering the departed. While seemingly simple, shape is very important to the monument. The memorial is structured in the shape of a circle because all three services are being revered equally. A police officer’s death is no more tragic or worthy than that of a firefighter or that of a soldier. The circle seemed to be an appropriate shape to give the monument because it is not a very radical shape (in terms of design), yet it allows for the equal spacing of the many facets of the monument. Within the center of the circle will be a large, in-ground fountain. The fountain will also be in the shape of a circle with the edge of the fountain surrounded with a low, white marble wall. The wall’s simple purpose is to keep the visitors from getting wet. The wall will be as lowSchwartz 2 as physically possible, to not obstruct the view of the center of the fountain. In the center of the fountain, there will be a spout of water that rains down in a five foot radius from the center. The water falling upon water will create a very calm and soothing sound effect for the memorial’s visitors, many of whom will be searching for the name of a loved one. One of the most important characteristics to the center fountain is the statues that will be positioned there. Roughly one to two feet outside of the radius of where the water will land from the spout in the center of the fountain, there will be three bronze statues. The best way to visualize what they will look like would be to look at the statue located at the entrance to the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial. When the statues are cast, they will be cast according to a design similar to that of the “Three Servicemen” statue. Their image will be of the almost stereotypical one; the one where they are all young, able-bodied, square-jawed. Even though there are many older men and women who belong to all three professions, the design of the statues will follow in the image the people are quick to think of when they think about one of the said vocations. The police officer statue will be standing in a state near attention, but not quite. The posture will be very good, yet he will look comfortable and not like he is trying to maintain his pose. The officer will be wearing the patrol uniform that people commonly think about when they picture a lawman. The firefighter will be in all of his firefighting equipment: jacket, pants, boots, and helmet. However, he will not be posed in a standing position the way the officer will be. Instead, the fireman will appear to be running off his pedestal, axe in hand. Lastly, the soldier will look like he was patrolling in the streets of Iraq. The memorial is in no way meant to be political, but in today’s world and with the Iraq War being constantly broadcast into Americans’ homes, a new vision of what the soldier of today looks like is emerging. He does not look like the soldiers of World War II, Vietnam, or even the minor conflicts of the 1980s. TimesSchwartz 3 have changed and so has the equipment and subsequent representation of the soldier. The soldier will be wearing the current issue Army Combat Uniform, helmet, and body armor plate-carrying modular vest (Army Combat Uniform). One of the pictures that most sticks out from the many reports in Iraq is the one where the soldier is patrolling the streets with his rifle slung across the front of his vest, barrel pointed to the ground and hand resting on the buttstock. That is the image that needs to be captured and the one that should be remembered for generations to come, just like the image of the flag raising on Iwo Jima was for the entire Battle of the Pacific in World War II. Each statue may seem to depict the stereotypical vision of a police officer, firefighter, or soldier; however, that is okay. Stereotypes can often be drawn from generalizations and that is what the sculptures are really meant to be…generalizations of the men whose names appear on the memorial walls. Unlike the “Three Servicemen,” our fallen heroes will not be standing side by side. Instead, they will be spaced equally apart around the circle that the raining water forms in the center of the fountain and they will look outward away from the water. While they will not be right next to each other, they are brothers. They are forever bound by the fact that they cannot cross the boundary of the fountain and join us in our world, just like we cannot cross that boundary and join them in theirs. The in-ground fountain will have pedestals placed in it with a shallow layer of water covering it. The “American Heroes” statues, as they will be called, will be placed atop these pedestals. Since the pedestals are under water, it will appear the sculptures are standing on water. The idea is to create an ethereal effect for the visitors and to subtly remind them that these people were not ordinary. The positioning of the American Heroes sculptures is quite significant. They will be facing a large white marble wall, where the names of their fallen comrades will be etched intoSchwartz 4 eternity. The statues will forever watch over, guide, and protect their brothers-in-arms whose names appear on those walls. The walls themselves have a great importance. The walls are where people will be able to truly remember those who gave their lives in the line of duty. Again borrowing from the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial, the walls will be engraved with the names of