In the UK and Australia, there’s a WWI memorial in **every** town square and sometimes a separate WWII memorial beside it. It’s pretty humbling to see that your town or village lost half of its young men in the space of a few years.
Are they more common in “older” states which may have had a bigger population during the Revolution, Civil War and the World Wars?
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Can’t speak for the whole country obviously, but there’s something honoring veterans in basically every little town near me. Some are smaller things for all veterans, some are larger and may have something specific to one or several different conflicts
I’ll just add for some specifics, my hometown has a dedicated Spanish American war memorial, a dedicated WW1 memorial, a memorial for all veterans from the town, a memorial for those who died from town, and a memorial for a ship named after the town, and also will get pictures from citizens of relatives who served and makes nice little banners they hang from the street light poles with their pictures on it
Indianapolis has more war memorials than anywhere else in the US outside of DC.
[Soldiers and Sailors Monument](https://goo.gl/maps/haTBzFeDdLvtuxKY8)
[American Legion Mall](https://goo.gl/maps/rUc5NjV1qUPVhq7n6)
[Congressional Medal of Honor Memorial](https://goo.gl/maps/fMGmLD55d6RdW42XA)
You can find memorials everywhere, though not many have a ton like Indianapolis has. Some type of memorial is pretty common in the county seat in Indiana counties where the historic courthouse is.
There are war memorials in cities and towns around the country. Obviously some places have been battlefields themselves and have dedicated memorials for the battles. Some towns have statues of war heroes and days dedicated to them. There are also highways all over the country named after fallen servicemen and women
Pretty much every small town in my area has one. Two are Civil War monuments, another is a World War I&II monument, and the other one is just a monument dedicated to local soldiers up until Vietnam when it was installed.
I can get a picture of a few of them tonight on my way home from work.
I don’t think I’ve ever lived in a town without one or more, either in the northeast where towns are old or the southwest where the aren’t. Memorials in the US often include the Korean War, the Vietnam War, one or both Iraq wars and the Afghan war, if anyone from the town served in them.
My parents’ town has a general memorial on the common and a small memorial to a man who dies on a corner near where he grew up.
I’ve noticed many memorials in California aren’t dedicated to one specific war, generally they are memorials for all who died serving their country from the city or county.
I don’t think I’ve ever crossed paths with a Civil War memorial in CA.
Every town has at least 1 war memorial. My town has a WWI, Vietnam, Korea, and I think WWII one, but I’m not sure
Just about every city and town New England town has a few memorials.
My town has a WWI and WWII memorial.
There’s a civil war memorial.
There’s a revolutionary war memorial in a cemetery.
Then you get down to Boston and it starts getting specific. There’s a memorial for the Boston Massacre. There the Bunker Hill obelisk. There are tons of other war memorials. The USS Constitution still floats in the harbor.
In Virginia we’ve got everything since the revolution, including both sides memorials for the Civil war. The most well known military cemetery in the US is in Virginia as well and with it, the tomb of the unknown soldier which honors all fallen combatants whose remains were unidentified or missing in action.
But yeah they’re pretty common in Virginia.
There’s usually something in all medium-sized and large cities, and a lot of small towns do too. They can be as unnoticeable as just a plaque, though, so it’s easy to miss in some places. They’re not always statues or something with high visibility.
In my tiny town we have a veteran’s memorial in the cemetery that’s got a Spanish-American War cannon and [the typical Union Soldier statue.](http://www.texasescapes.com/Monuments/Images/DenisonTXFairviewCemeteryUnionSoldierStatue907MikePrice16.jpg) Also in town at one of the parks we have a newer veteran’s memorial that covers the modern wars.
In New England I feel like I’ve never been to a town without a memorial.
We also have a lot of cannons with their shooty side buried.
They’re basically everywhere, typically the size depends on the city. Anything from a plaque at a park in Anytown USA to the Vietnam War or Iwo Jima memorials in DC
I live in New York – every village has a war memorial. Some go back to the Revolutionary war. My hometown has a parade on Memorial Day (last Monday in May) ending at the memorial. The school band plays patriotic songs and wreaths are laid.
I’d say each town has a WWII monument in them. My town does and I think every surrounding town does.
Civil War memorials have been contentious as of late, though they’re definitely in town squares across the eastern US.
There’s a war memorial in virtually every County seat, and every large town or city.
The big war memorial in my town and many New England towns is a Civil War memorial. The memorial in the center of my town went up in 1866, the year after the war ended.
Very. We have national monuments ( in DC and other locales) and most cities have at least something dedicated to the local contribution.
I grew up in the DC suburbs, so I’m used to there being memorials for pretty much every conflict the US has ever been in being present. NOVA is also where a lot of the fighting for the Civil War was so there are memorials and monuments marking important locations all over the place. Not sure what the rest of the country is like.
Very, they’re everywhere. It would be difficult to find towns that don’t have one.
They’re common, you see at least one in almost every town. The town I live closest to has a spot dedicated to Native American veterans.
Less common than they were 5 years ago 🙂
Being reminded of racism offended too many people in the US. So a lot of those war monuments and memorials went away…EXCEPT the state parks that are on old confederate battlefields. No one speaks of those since no state is going to fund a 100m dollar revamp of a park that can’t break even.
The ‘capital’ of the county I grew up in near Chicago had a war memorial just outside the county courthouse. I think it was originally built after the Civil War, then expanded after the world wars.
Keep in mind, as far as casualties go, the Civil War for us was kind of like WWI for Britain, in that we lost about the same percent of our population in four years of fighting, and pretty much every part of the country that had been settled so far lost someone. Memorial Day, which we mark at the end of this month, has its origins in the aftermath of the Civil War as Americans sought a way to honor those killed in the conflict.
I think pretty much every town here has at least one as well. You may not recognize it as such, but if you think you don’t have one in your town, look into it and you’ll probably be surprised.
I grew up in a tiny town in Western New York (2200 residents). We had three war memorials: Civil War obelisk, Great War cobblestone structure (benches with fountain), WW2 bolder (9’ high 10’ around). Each included a plaque with the name of each man who served in combat with a star if he was wounded and a cross if he was killed.
Several I can think of. Jefferson barracks cemetery in st Louis . Loads of places around d.c. Obviously and one war memorial in the middle of nowheresville small town Minnesota (among others in larger cities in same state) oh. And WWII museum and memorial in Kansas City (Missouri).
What I can think of off the top of my head.
Very common. I’ve seen Korean war memorials. Vietnam memorials, WW2 memorials in many towns.
My medium sized town alone has a Korean war memorial and a civil war memorial and a WW2 memorial.
Near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania there is a whole preserved American Civil War battlefield from July, 1863. The Battle of Gettysburg was one of the most important engagements of the war, and along with the concurrent Federal victory in Vicksburg, Mississippi, represents a decisive turning point in favor of the Federal forces (Union/Northern) over the Confederates (Southern separatists/secessionists). The Gettysburg National Military Park is easily one of the best historic sites in the United States.
kind of the same, but less personal. maybe just bc we have more people and more disparate communities, but we don’t have that thing with the town hall and list of veterans from the town and everyone knows who they are. we have churches with lists, and some towns have a big brass statue shaped like a book with names put up by the VFW (local chapter of the us army veterans’ assn), and every cemetary puts flowers and ribbons on veteran’s graves on memorial day and vetern’s day and sometimes july 4th.
it’s just much more decentralized and less of a small town feel where everyone knows what’s going on and knows who is a veteran. you have to seek out this information or be a family member of a vet to know where these memorials are.
Depends on the war and how much we want to remember it. In my town, the Revolutionary War memorial (erected 1861) the Civil War memorial (1874) and World War II memorial (2009) are situated prominently in the common. The Korean War memorial is tucked away by the train station next to a rail viaduct, the Vietnam memorial in a peaceful corner of one of the parks, the WWI Armistice memorial is on the top of a hill in the same park (we don’t have any memorials for the war itself since the war was so unpopular, especially for Irish Catholics). Apparently we have a “southwest Asian war” which is a euphemism for the war on terror but it looks to be the size of a headstone and I had no idea it was there until I looked it up.