A dramatic high relief bronze sculpture titled, A Soldier’s Journey, by sculptor Sabin Howard commemorates the first World War One monument in Washington DC.

Last Friday night as evening fell on the busy streets of Washington DC, The WWI Centennial Commission and Doughboy Foundation unveiled a new 58-foot long bronze WWI memorial of thirty-eight individually carved figures. In an illumination ceremony of military fanfare and ballots played by the US Army Band, visiting dignitaries shared in heartfelt speeches of remembrance, as the newest city monument was officially turned over to Washington’s Department of Parks.

Featured centerpiece of the newly constructed John Pershing Plaza was the colossal bronze titled, A Soldier’s Journey by sculptor Sabin Howard. His work presented attending guests a captivating visual essay of opposites; contrasting a young girl to men physically engaged in war, and the customary stillness of a park water pool to a sculptured turbulence of battle charging infantry men.

A Young Architect’s Collaborative Process

The awarded WWI architectural park proposal, was notable in the selection of Joseph Weishaar,  an intern – not yet licensed architect, who at the age of twenty-five had little work experience. To support his planned construction and land development, the firm of GWWO Architects in Baltimore was hired to oversee the project. It was of interest to the WWI Commission that Weishaar’s site specification stipulated a traditional ‘figurative monument,’ in lieu of modern conceptual art. With a final site plan agreement, the collaborative of architects, artist and land developer worked towards a new balanced park design of open court areas, fountain and sculptural focal point.

The design team’s program also introduced new structural elements of two ten-foot engraved granite information walls and a granite belvedere to quickly read over the plaza lower level stepped seating, walkway, sculpture and reflecting pools. Bermed earth with plantings, now surround the court perimeter and act as effective sound barriers to busy pedestrian streets. Near the berm, but  secluded behind the long bronze sculpture, stands the granite Peace Fountain. Its wall of gentle falling water passes behind a raised text excerpt from the poem “The Young Dead Soldiers Do Not Speak,” by Archibald MacLeish, which begins;

• • • “…They say, We were young. We have died. Remember us.
      They say, We have done what we could but until it is finished it is not done…
      They say, We have given our lives but until it is finished no one can know what our lives gave.
      They say, Our deaths are not ours: they are yours: they will mean what you make them.”

Follow the Enlisted Guy

Sabin Howard described his WWI monument, A Soldier’s Journey, as a personal service dedicated to the military, but for the public. His initial design criterion, as defined by the  WWI Commission prospectus was a sobering task, ” … to design a monument in tribute and honor of 4.7 million WWI service members and over 116,000 who gave their lives.”  Howard chose a concept to represent the whole, by distilling his design into just one man’s war experience. Displayed across a monumental 58-foot length bronze work he created 38 life-size figures, grouped into five unique panels of sequenced events.

That Friday Howard’s war memorial was met with much success, and now throughout the day his sculpted high-relief figures become animated in direct sunlight as it casts shadows and movement across the long surface. The first panel features a civilian’s recruitment and swift departure to awaiting fellow infantry in the midst of battle. Following through the scenes, physical gestures and weary face are filled with raw drama, absent of heroic symbolism or embellishment. His narrative comes to a close in silent victory, and marked by a young girl reading her father’s discharge papers.

Through figurative gestures and expressions of his bronze relief, Sabin Howard managed to fully acknowledge the severity of war, offering no role or solution, but owned a small bit of the crisis. Artfully woven through each of the 38 interactive bronze figures, Sabin made clear that in war lives are disrupted, men are lost, and many leave homes without assurance or plan for safety.

       “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”                                                                                            – President Ronald Reagan