David and Art - The Art of Remembering

There was an article in the Baylor student newspaper The Lariat last week, reporting that a future US Navy aircraft carrier that was intended to be named for Waco native and Navy veteran, Doris Miller might be having its name changed in favor of a current US president. Inasmuch as Doris Miller is regarded as one of the few American heroes we know by name from the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, such a decision invites questions about how we can best memorialize someone.

Miller had a Knox-Class Frigate named for him that was commissioned in 1973 and was part of the Navy until 1991.

As a culture we’re a little uncertain of how we want to go about this. The design of our monuments, and the consequent reactions they inspire, veers between coolly detached on the one hand and monumental on the other. For decades after the unveiling of architect Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial in 1982, a detached style intended to encourage contemplation was dominant. Over those years many, if not exactly all of us, have grown less comfortable with the artistic language of triumphalism. You may remember about 15 years ago there was a big controversy over the MLK Memorial in DC. Its critics either said the statue involved made King seem arrogant, or look downright Pharaonic. But then again, here in Texas we have the Sam Houston statue that towers over I-45 in Huntsville.

The Doris Miller Memorial here in Waco actually brings together different styles really well. It avoids the pitfalls of being either overly monumental or overly contemplative. If you’ve spent some time with it, you’ve probably picked up that in terms of art, it combines contemporary abstraction with a more traditional commemorative element as well as any other memorial to an individual in the country. If you’ve not gone to see it, do so.

Like all who embody the nebulous notion of heroism, Miller represents a yardstick by which to judge ourselves, but because we’ve so confused heroism with celebrity, we don’t really know how to commemorate it. A true hero enshrines his individual identity by surrendering it, something our current culture does nothing to encourage.

Memorializing someone is an artistic act. And it’s not just an act of remembering. To memorialize is to allow the memory of a person to adjust the way we live our lives. It’s a tough task. But the right kind of art in the memorial can make all the difference. Doris Miller was 24 when he died a couple of years after Pearl Harbor. Today is his 107^th birthday.

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