|
(Continued from page 23)
• "We feel that we don't want to be represented on the museum property because we're not relics anymore," he said. "We're not artifacts to be observed. We are real soldiers, we contributed to defense of this country, and we need to be honored in the Mall area."
• John Garcia, deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, said he's been meeting with Native American leaders and believes that a memorial "is a real possibility" if land is located and private funds are raised.
• Garcia estimated there are about 200,000 Native American veterans, and a memorial dedicated to them would be appropriate since they have been involved in every American war from the American Revolution to recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Supporters of the two efforts agree that a memorial in the capital city would help to raise awareness of the role Native veterans have played in the country's history.
• "We're trying to instill pride in our heritage as original inhabitants of this land," Begay said. "We don't want our children to grow up with that concept that we're insignificant. We want to instill in them that they're important members of the American community, and they should be proud of that."
•
AP News in Brief
70 years after Marine's death, WW2 Museum visitor sees his diary note: Return diary to her
• NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Before Cpl. Thomas "Cotton" Jones was killed by a Japanese sniper in the South Pacific in 1944, he wrote what he called his "last life request" to anyone who might find his diary: Please give it to Laura Mae Davis, the girl he loved.
• Davis did get to read the diary -- but not until nearly 70 years later, when she saw it in a display case at the National World War II Museum.
• "I didn't have any idea there was a diary in there," said the 90-year-old Mooresville, Ind., woman. She said it brought tears to her eyes.
• Laura Mae Davis Burlingame -- she married an Army Air Corps man in 1945 -- had gone to the New Orleans museum on April 24 looking for a display commemorating the young Marine who had been her high-school sweetheart.
• "I figured I'd see pictures of him and the fellows he'd served with and articles about where he served," she said.
• ___
(Continued on page 25)
|
|
