Ronald A. Seale, 33°, Sovereign Grand Commander

Like the many other monuments on the Mall, the new National WWII Memorial pays tribute to another generation which has gone beyond the call of duty in service to America.

Washington, D.C., is a city of monuments, memorials, and commemoratives. You can literally walk up and touch history in a hundred ways. The cover of this magazine features the new National World War II Memorial, and on the following page, you will find an article about the Memorial by Admiral William G. Sizemore (U.S. Navy Ret.), 33°, Grand Cross, a veteran dating from those days and now my right-hand man as Grand Executive Director of the Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction. How he landed his aircraft again and again on the pitching deck of an aircraft carrier during our country’s wars and other conflicts of past years is an act of skill, courage, and patriotism difficult to imagine. Whether in the United States Navy or in the Scottish Rite, Illustrious Sizemore’s reputation as “unflappable” is well proven.

So much of our national life is there on the Mall. At one end is the obelisk of the George Washington Monument, pointing us upward to the heavens and reminding us of America’s foremost President and Freemason. At the other end is the epic statue of Abraham Lincoln, gazing out with eyes made tired by strife, yet which still reflect a confidence in the future. It seems his left hand could almost reach out and touch three nearby monuments.

One honors those who fell in the Vietnam War. Its stark beauty and engraved names remind us that, after all, it is the sacrifice of men and women which ultimately matters in the affairs of nations. Then there is the memorial to the Korean War where, especially during nighttime hours, you walk among a troop of ghost-like bronze statues, each a battle-exhausted soldier fighting for freedom in a distant land. Now the new National World War II Memorial joins these two tributes to human courage and patriotism. Each monument, in its different way, tells the same story of brave young men and women defending our country, our culture, and our way of life. As Albert Pike wrote: “One stream of life flows there, with ten thousand intermingled branches and channels, through all the homes of human love.”*

Each of these memorials and the acts of courage they honor strengthens me, you, and America. Visit these great monuments, be inspired, and rededicate yourself, as I have, to the excellence of personal character and to the high ideals which have made our nation and Freemasonry great.

*Morals and Dogma, page 197.