WV -- Charleston -- West Virginia Veterans Memorial:
- Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.
- Recognize anyone? If you recognize specific folks (or other stuff) and I haven't labeled them, please identify them for the world. Click the little pencil icon
underneath the file name (just above the picture). Spammers need not apply.
- Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.
- Accessing as Spider: The system has identified your IP as being a spider.
IP Address: 18.117.182.179 -- Domain: Amazon Technologies
I love well-behaved spiders! They are, in fact, how most people find my site. Unfortunately, my network has a limited bandwidth and pictures take up bandwidth. Spiders ask for lots and lots of pages and chew up lots and lots of bandwidth which slows things down considerably for regular folk. To counter this, you'll see all the text on the page but the images are being suppressed. Also, some system options like merges are being blocked for you.
Note: Permission is NOT granted for spiders, robots, etc to use the site for AI-generation purposes. I'm sure you're thrilled by your ability to make revenue from my work but there's nothing in that for my human users or for me.
If you are in fact human, please email me at guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can check if your designation was made in error. Given your number of hits, that's unlikely but what the hell.
- Help? The Medium (Email) links are for screen viewing and emailing. You'll want bigger sizes for printing. [Click here for additional help]
|
[1]
 WVVET_081004_17.JPG
|
[2] WVVET_081004_22.JPG
|
[3] WVVET_081004_26.JPG
|
[4] WVVET_081004_44.JPG
|
[5] WVVET_081004_56.JPG
|
[6] WVVET_081004_69.JPG
|
[7]
WVVET_081005_06.JPG
|
[8] WVVET_081005_11.JPG
|
[9] WVVET_081005_15.JPG
|
[10]
WVVET_081005_22.JPG
|
[11] WVVET_081005_36.JPG
|
[12] WVVET_081005_38.JPG
|
[13] WVVET_081005_55.JPG
|
[14] WVVET_081005_61.JPG
|
[15]
WVVET_081005_67.JPG
|
[16] WVVET_081005_70.JPG
|
[17] WVVET_081005_79.JPG
|
[18] WVVET_081005_81.JPG
|
[19] WVVET_081005_89.JPG
|
- Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
- WVVET_081004_17.JPG: West Virginia Veterans Memorial:
The West Virginia Veterans Memorial is a two-story oval shaped monument honoring more than 10,000 West Virginians who made the ultimate sacrifice in defending the nation in twentieth century conflicts. Composed of four limestone monoliths surrounded by a reflecting pool, the interior walls are faced in polished black granite etched with the names of these men and women. The Memorial was designed by P. Joseph Mullins, who also sculpted the four figures representing the four major twentieth century conflicts and the four major branches of military service.
Begun as a privately funded undertaking, the Veterans Memorial Commission spearheaded these efforts as it undertook compiling the names to be honored on the Memorial. After the official groundbreaking ceremony on June 22, 1990, the foundation was completed the year after and the monolith cores in 1992. Work was performed under direction of ZMM, Inc. architects and G & G Builders. The 1994 legislature provided for lottery revenues to supplement fund-raising efforts, moving the project to a more rapid completion. With installation of the final sculpture in 1999, the cost of the Memorial and data on the inscribed names approached four million dollars. The project continues through the work of the Veterans Memorial Archives, which compiles additional background information on each veteran honored on the Memorial, to be placed in a database and accessible to the public through the West Virginia State Archives.
Dedication of the Memorial, with the World War II sailor sculpture, took place on Veterans Day 1995, ten years after the appointment of the original West Virginia Vietnam Veterans Memorial Commission. In Veterans Day ceremonies in 1997 - 99, the bronze sculptures of a World War I dough boy, a Korean aviator, and a Vietnam Marine, respectively, were dedicated. Each figure is in full gear, authentic to the period and rank represented, as meticulously researched by the sculptor.
The West Virginia Veterans Memorial is part of the State Capitol Complex in Charleston. To visit the Memorial, take Exit 99 (State Capitol/Greenbrier St.) of Interstate 64/77. Pre-pay parking (bring quarters!) is available on the Capitol Complex. Additional visitor parking is available at Laidley Field on Elizabeth St. with shuttle service to the complex.
How Many West Virginians Served?
It is impossible to determine the number of West Virginians who served in the American Revolution, War of 1812, and Mexican War because West Virginia was still part of Virginia. The U.S. Veterans Affairs Office has defined the periods of active duty and the U.S. Dept. of Defense has compiled estimated service numbers for 20th-century wars.
* Civil War (12 April 1861 - 26 May 1865): Estimated 40,000 to 46,000 (20,000-36,000 Union; 10,000-20,000 Confederate)
* Spanish-American War (21 April 1898 - 4 July 1902): 3,004
* World War I (6 April 1917 - 11 November 1918, extended to 1 April 1920 for those who served in Russia): 58,053
* World War II (7 December 1941 - 31 December 1946, extended to 25 July 1947 in some cases): 233,985
* Korean Conflict (25 June 1950 - 31 January 1955): 112,000
* Vietnam Era (5 August 1964 - 7 May 1975): 36,578
* Gulf War (1 August 1990 - cessation of hostilities on 11 April 1991): 12,000 bonuses paid
The above is from http://www.wvculture.org/history/wvvets.html
- WVVET_081005_06.JPG: A "killed in action" plaque for those killed since the wars depicted on the veterans memorial.
- WVVET_081005_22.JPG: Congressional Medal of Honor recipients plaque
- WVVET_081005_67.JPG: Someone had apparently driven over the lawn and smacked into the memorial which caused the fountain to leak and such. They've been repairing it and the inner plaques.
- Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.)
I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com
and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
- Connection Not Secure messages? Those warnings you get from your browser about this site not having secure connections worry some people. This means this site does not have SSL installed (the link is http:, not https:). That's bad if you're entering credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal information. But this site doesn't collect any personal information so SSL is not necessary. Life's good!
- Photo Contact: [Email Bruce Guthrie].
