Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, V Corps commander, decided to build the memorial as a way to remember the service and sacrifice of those who served under his command from January 2003 until June 2004. (Michael Abrams / Stars and Stripes)
HEIDELBERG, Germany — Eight tons of German granite carved with scenes of grief and glory now rest on the grass outside V Corps to honor troops killed in the first 18 months of the Iraq war.
The memorial for the 945 men and women who died while under the command of V Corps, which became Combined Joint Task Force-7, was dedicated Wednesday at Campbell Barracks under a flawless blue sky, amid visiting generals from Great Britain, Poland and Hungary.
After the corps band played “Onward Christian Soldiers,” among other selections, the V Corps commander, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, lauded the accomplishments of the force and the sacrifice of the dead.
“Someday in the future as we emerge victorious from this war, we will look back on the sacrifices made by those who served under the V Corps and CJTF-7 colors during 2003 and 2004 and we will honor them as peacemakers and warriors,” Sanchez said.
Although some U.S. Army divisions that fought and whose soldiers died in Iraq have erected monuments to their dead, this is the first such memorial for V Corps since World War I, according to Lt. Col. Brian McNerney, V Corps spokesman.
The idea to build it came from Sanchez, who wanted to mark and remember the service and sacrifice of those who’d served under his command from January 2003 until June 2004. The sculpted granite is in four panels, with reliefs depicting training, staging in Kuwait, combat in Iraq beginning March 19, 2003, and, starting three months later, “stability and support operations.”
In that time, Sanchez said, more than 850 U.S. troops were killed and more than 7,500 wounded. The British, who supplied the most troops after the United States, suffered 53 casualties, followed by 18 Italians, 10 Spaniards and five Bulgarians. Thailand, Poland and Ukraine each lost two troops, and El Salvador, Denmark and Estonia each lost one.
V Corps officials assigned to get the memorial built hired German designer Max Udo Bauer and sculptor Henning Wittmann, among others, to devise the $100,000 piece. Bauer, who attended the dedication, said he’d wanted to depict the soldier’s work, and to place the soldier in the foreground, with the tools of war and the landscape in the background.
The somber sculpture, which rises 7 feet from the ground and resembles a tomb, took four months to complete, he said, with a great deal of interaction between artist and V Corps officials.
“We cooperated with the colonels and the generals,” Bauer said. “They gave critiques, but very positive critiques.”
Unlike the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, on which 58,249 names of all the American servicemembers who died in the war are carved into black granite, the V Corps monument has only inscribed the names of the units in Iraq that served under V Corps.
Spc. Rebecca Burt said she fought back tears during the dedication, especially during taps, and that, despite having spent a year in Baghdad’s International Zone, the memorial made it all seem more real somehow.
“It brings it home: We went to war. It wasn’t a video game or an exercise,” she said. “It was a war.”
Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, V Corps commander, decided to build the memorial as a way to remember the service and sacrifice of those who served under his command from January 2003 until June 2004. (Michael Abrams / Stars and Stripes)
Staff Sgt. Robert Jobe, of the 1st Armored Division's 141st Signal Battalion, salutes during the national anthem at the memorial dedication ceremony. (Michael Abrams / Stars and Stripes)
Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, V Corps commander, speaks at a ceremony dedicating a memorial, in background, to the soldiers of V Corps and Combined Joint Task Force-7 who died in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The memorial is at V Corps headquarters in Heidelberg, Germany. (Michael Abrams / Stars and Stripes)
Command Sgt. Maj. Thomas Clark, 22nd Signal Brigade, touches the monument to the soldiers of V Corps and Combined Joint Task Force-7. Clark, who served in Iraq, said 10 of the brigade's soldiers died during Operation Iraqi Freedom. (Michael Abrams / Stars and Stripes)
Staff Sgt. Teddy Gonzalez of the 76th Army Band plays Taps at the end of the ceremony. (Michael Abrams / Stars and Stripes)
