Page 19 - Demo

Slippery Rock Gazette
September 2022 | 19
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National Desert Storm Memorial Association
Left: Randy Schumacher with a Desert Storm veteran, attending the ground-breaking ceremony for the Desert Storm War Memorial (below), in Washington, DC.
Continued from page 16
However, according to Randy, he didn’t want to take this project on withoutveteraninput.Randycre- ated a survey and sent it to the veteran data base of Scott’s non- profit. He wanted input from the people this memorial was most important to.
20 months after he was handed the project, Randy completed the first set of drawings. The draw- ings are of a curved wall made of granite to symbolize the sand dunes in the terrain the war was fought on and the arc of the “Left Hook” offensive that helped the coalition free Kuwait and defend Saudi Arabia. Armed with Randy’s drawings, Scott Stump went back to Congress for a vote. The vote was 360 to 0, getting the memorial the Congressional sup- port it needed.
At this time, The Olin Studio, a premier landscape and urban design firm in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania took over the
project. Skip Graffam, landscape architect with Olin Studio, has been working with this project and pushing it forward ever since Olin took it over. The project broke ground on July 14, 2022, and is scheduled to be completed on Veterans Day, November 11, 2024. Present at the ground- breaking were the board of the National Desert Storm Memorial Association (all veterans), rep- resentatives from CSO and Olin Studio, plus His Excellency Salem Abdullah Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Ambassador of the State of Kuwait.
Even though the original design has changed, the curved gran- ite wall still remains the focus of the project. The site is drawn to be approximately 200 feet x 200 feet. The granite wall itself will be approximately 7 feet tall. The fear was that if it was much taller it would obstruct the Lincoln Memorial.
Oddly enough though, while the project does have a completion
date, they have not yet picked the color of the granite for the wall. They are looking for a color that best represents the color of the sand dunes. We wish them luck.
If you wish to learn more about the war, the memorial or if you wish to donate, please visit www. ndswm.org.
To follow the progress of the memorial, visit their Facebook
page: https://www.facebook. com/NationalDesertStorm WarMemorial.
On a side note, there are four different people the Slippery Rock needs to thank: Number 1 – To all our veterans of Desert Shield/ Desert Storm and to all our veter- ans everywhere, we thank you for your service. Number 2 – Scott Stump, we thank you for your
service and to your dedication to this project. Lastly, we thank you for showing the world that one man can make a difference. Number 3 – Randy Schmacher, we thank you for taking the time to talk to us and tell us this story. And number 4 – Trey Monday of BBG Granite in Virginia, we thank you for bringing this signif- icant and worthwhile project to our attention.