Marines lose round in battle to stop Air Force memorial

The Marine Corps took a blow last week in its battle to prevent the Air Force from building a memorial on the same ground as the Marines' Iwo Jima memorial.

On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Friends of Iwo Jima, a group attempting to preserve the Iwo Jima memorial's position on Arlington Ridge, in Arlington, Va. The proposed Air Force memorial would be located only 500 feet away from the Iwo Jima memorial.

Friends of Iwo Jima filed suit in U.S. district court against the Air Force Memorial Foundation last June, saying the foundation and several federal agencies had not followed the law in approving the Arlington Ridge site. The district court dismissed the case, finding that the organizations had followed appropriate guidelines. Friday, the appeals court upheld that ruling.

"Certainly we are pleased with the decision, and frankly we aren't surprised, because we felt like we did everything appropriately and even went beyond what the rules called for," said Pete Lindquist, vice president of operations for the Air Force Memorial Foundation.

Marine organizations and some members of Congress have sought to keep the Air Force memorial off the Iwo Jima memorial grounds for several years. The Air Force memorial design still must be approved by the Commission on Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission. The Air Force Memorial Foundation must also raise an additional $15 million before the National Park Service will issue permits that would allow groundbreaking, Lindquist said.

If all goes well, the site could begin construction as early as next year, Lindquist said. But Clayton Depue, chairman of the Friends of Iwo Jima, said the battle isn't over yet.

"We're obviously disappointed, but the decision wasn't entirely unexpected," Depue said. The group is still waiting for a National Park Service decision on whether the proposed memorial requires an environmental impact study. Such a study would delay construction for several months at least.

Two historical societies are also looking into naming the Iwo Jima park and memorial a historical site. If that occurred, the requirements to build on the site would be toughened and the Air Force memorial design might have to be reduced in scale, Depue said.