MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (WMBF) – Myrtle Beach city leaders received an update on Tuesday into the design plan for the future Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
The proposal for the memorial was first presented in November, and since that time there have been several input meetings involving the community and veterans on what the design should look like.
MORE INFORMATION | Vietnam Veterans Memorial Presentation
The memorial will be at Warbird Park and is expected to be at the far end of the park where it can be seen from Farrow Parkway and South Kings Highway.
During the meetings, officials learned that the name should be the Vietnam Veterans Memorial rather than the Vietnam War Veterans Memorial.
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“Once the information was presented to us, it really made sense to change it to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial because we ant to memorialize what people did during the war,” explained Chris Miller, the infrastructure project manager for the city of Myrtle Beach. “We don’t want to memorialize the war itself. We want to memorialize the veterans that sacrificed their life for the country.”
Another input that Miller and the architects received was that the community would like to see a helicopter at the memorial because of the huge presence helicopters had in Vietnam. The community and veterans would also like to see American and POW/MIA flags, an iron cross and a peace sign displayed at the memorial, along with an area for reflection.
On top of the input, Miller and Jessica Wise, an architect with Greenberg Farrow who is working on the project, said Tom Gallo, a sculptor, reached out to them and said he is interested in creating a piece for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Gallo is well-known for the Frank Beamer sculpture at Virginia Tech and the wolfpack sculpture at North Carolina State University.
“A sculpture has always been a part of the design and so this particular artist reached out to Chris Miller… I believe he lives in Virginia and he has a residence in Surfside, so he’s heard about the project and he’s excited to be involved,” Wise said.
Miller said Gallo is working on a rendering of a sculpture that he will receive in about two weeks and they will work to incorporate it into the memorial.
Miller and Wise said the next step is to finalize the conceptual design with all the community and veteran input and provide that design, along with a cost estimate, to the Myrtle Beach City Council in February.
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