Impasse threatens statue to female vets

[Gunner Carvo]

Impasse threatens statue to female vets

By Lawrence Messina - The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Sep 8, 2008 612 EDT

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — To artist Joe Mullins, recent history appears ready to repeat itself.

Mullins was hired nearly 10 years ago to sculpt a statue to honor West Virginia’s female veterans. But a fight over the design all but derailed the project five years ago.

Mullins now worries that a new attempt to complete the memorial is headed toward the same fate.

The Division of Culture and History has refused to fill its two seats on a new, 13-member committee assigned to assess the project and find it a permanent home.

Mullins says that could leave the committee dominated by older veterans who dislike his statue, which was developed and approved by a different committee at the beginning of the decade. These critics have argued that the statue is too masculine, and should be wearing a skirt instead of fatigue pants.

Mullins wants to confer with Keith Gwinn, recently appointed by Gov. Joe Manchin to head the state Division of Veteran’s Affairs, before deciding whether to withdraw from the process.

“It’s looking like it won’t be a fair and just process,” Mullins said. “These boys aren’t shooting straight with me, and I don’t make a good victim.”

But Veterans’ Affairs, which proposed the new committee, wants to proceed with its remaining members and seek a fair resolution.

“We are currently trying to resolve this matter without litigation,” said Joe Thornton, spokesman for the Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety.

In the meantime, Mullins said his reputation has already suffered. He believes he was passed over for commissions in Morgantown and in Europe because the female veteran memorial remains incomplete.

To those outside the project, it could appear he failed to complete his appointed task, he said.

“In the commissioned art world, that’s the kiss of death,” said Mullins, 67. “I did what I was asked to do. Everybody on the original committee was delighted by my work, as best I know.”

Making things worse, Mullins said, are critics who have alleged he never served in the military and therefore lacks the proper perspective. Mullins led a machine gun squad in the Army’s 1st Division, the storied “Big Red One,” and his service included time in a divided, Cold War Germany during the tense days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, he said.

Honoring veterans is a major issue in West Virginia. The Legislature has repeatedly awarded them bonuses, tuition breaks and other perks following conflicts. The state has the country’s eighth-largest percentage of veterans in its population, according to 2007 figures from the U.S. Census and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Federal figures also estimate that the state has the ninth-largest number of active and reserve-duty military per-capita.

The number of West Virginia’s female veterans has nearly doubled, to 11,259 according to the latest federal figures, since the statue was commissioned in 1999.

Culture and History commissioned Mullins in 1999 for the statue. The state had just put the finishing touches on a major Mullins project: the West Virginia Veterans Memorial on the Capitol grounds. The monument features four statues, each depicting a different branch of the military and one of the major conflicts of the 20th Century.

Mullins said a committee appointed to oversee the design offered him such examples as Rosie the Riveter and female figures in art from the French Revolution.

“They wanted this aggressive, modern woman in fatigues. They didn’t want someone in makeup and high heels,” Mullins said. “The state of West Virginia ordered that, and that’s what I did.”

But a second committee was formed in 2004, in response to complaints from older veterans and others about the resulting design: a square-jawed woman, her hair tucked under a field cap, clad in a T-shirt, fatigue pants and combat boots and holding a flag.

“I didn’t take them too terribly seriously, because I had a written contract with Culture and History,” Mullins said. “I was expecting someone from there to stand up for me, but what I got from them was complete silence.”

But the division balked at taking any further role with the project. It adopted a similar stance during a 2006 attempt to erect the statue at the new veterans’ nursing home in Clarksburg, instead of near the existing veterans’ memorial at the Capitol Complex.

Deputy Commissioner Jacqueline A. Proctor said Culture and History has declined to staff the new committee because it believes it has competed its duties regarding the sculpture. She referred all further questions to Military Affairs.

Of the remaining members, two each will come from Mullins, the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the general public. The state Veterans’ Council, and advisory panel, will have three members including its chair. A seat specifically for a woman veteran rounds out the panel.

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Lawrence Messina covers the statehouse for The Associated Press.

[Keith_Hixson]

It would be nice to see a pic and judge for ourselves.

Keith

[revwardoc]

Here's a YouTube link to the story:

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6AwOPVXuH8[/media]