GUIDED BY A STEADY HAND

D-Day Memorial in Bedford gears up for the national spotlight

By JAY CONLEY
The Roanoke Times
April 15, 2001

BEDFORD - It's late March, 70 days before the National D-Day Memorial will open, and Richard Burrow is late for a meeting to discuss the logistics of 20,000 people coming to Bedford for the June 6 ceremony.

The D-Day Memorial Foundation executive director has been up since 6 a.m. He read the newspaper at his home in Roanoke, attended an early-morning marketing meeting, then drove 35 minutes to his office in Bedford.

At 9:35 a.m. the temperature is a few degrees shy of 50 as Burrow walks out of his office and heads across Main Street. The bright sunshine holds a promise that the day will grow warmer.

Burrow, 54, is keenly aware of the mild weather's significance. At the unfinished memorial's dirt-strewn site, every sunny day above freezing means more concrete is poured, more sidewalks are formed, more granite stones are laid and more trees and shrubs are planted.

Like the task at hand for thousands of World War II Allied soldiers who invaded Nazi-controlled France beginning June 6, 1944, pulling off the memorial's dedication this June 6 will be equal parts preparation, planning and luck.

Since Memorial Day, when the huge Overlord Arch and two sculptures were unveiled before 6,000 people, the remainder of the gigantic memorial has taken shape.

Enough concrete has been poured to build six Wal-Mart Supercenters. Out of it has been fashioned a slightly abstract replica of the Normandy landing, with a sprawling middle plaza, a reflecting pool, a simulated beach and faux German bunkers.

But there is a daunting amount of work still to be done at the nine-acre monument site off U.S. 460 next to Bedford Elementary School.

Dozens of construction workers are laboring six days a week, sometimes into the night. They carefully caulk gaps between granite stones and concrete blocks, plant trees on acres of landscaping and test elaborate electrical and water systems that will run the memorial's lighting, surveillance and fountains.

If Burrow is troubled by the unfinished monument and the enormous deadline that looms, he doesn't show it. The Virginia Tech-trained engineer looks fresh and crisp in a dark suit and patterned tie as he ascends the stairs of the municipal building to the Bedford City Council chambers.

"He's tenacious," said the memorial's visionary, Roanoke County resident and D-Day veteran Bob Slaughter. "When he wants something done, he gets it done."

Slaughter said Burrow is much like his father, John Burrow, a World War II veteran and retired Virginia State Police division commander who lives in Salem.

"Everybody in Salem calls him 'Thorough Burrow,' and Richard's the same way," Slaughter said.

Coordinating 20,000

Burrow, who lives with his wife, Almyra, in Roanoke's Raleigh Court neighborhood, is accustomed to shouldering the responsibility of huge public works projects. As Explore Park's engineer, he worked for almost a decade to create the living-history park in Roanoke County.

Before that, Burrow was Roanoke's traffic engineer, chief project engineer and then city engineer, working on high-profile projects such as the revitalization of the Roanoke City Market, Center in the Square and the renewal of Elmwood Park.

"You just don't get a chance to build many national-level projects," Burrow said later in the day. "But I think I'm pretty uniquely qualified to do this."

If the large amount of unfinished work at the memorial doesn't faze him, handling a huge influx of people at the opening ceremony does. Traffic, bathrooms, first aid and security all weigh heavily on Burrow's mind these days.

As Burrow walks into the meeting in City Hall, the sheer number of local, state and federal agencies represented is a testament to the impact this event will likely have on Bedford, population 6,299.

In addition to Bedford Police Chief Milton Graham and Sheriff's Lt. Kent Robey, a representative from the U.S. Secret Service has shown up because President Bush might attend the opening ceremony.

Also present are officials from the Bedford-Bedford County 911 system, Virginia State Police, local fire department and lifesaving crews, Carilion Bedford Memorial Hospital and emergency room officials and a VDOT representative.

Burrow quickly joins a discussion of traffic logistics and lays out plans that have been developed over many months.

Anyone driving by car to the 10 a.m. ceremony June 6 will have to park in one of five satellite lots in and around the city, he said. From there, one of 75 school buses will take 45 passengers at a time on a five-minute ride to the site.

Burrow estimates at least 15,000 people can be transported to the site in this manner.

But chartered buses from regional and out-of-state locations may bring thousands more people and could cause a traffic jam if they all arrive at the same time, he noted.

About 10,000 chairs will be set up inside the plaza.

"I've dealt with events before, and I'm a traffic engineer, so I think I can plan," Burrow said. But he holds genuine concern for problems that could arise if more than 20,000 people show up.

When the discussion moves to issues of first-aid stations and portable bathroom facilities, Burrow advances like a military commander to a podium at the front of the council chambers. Law enforcement and municipal officers surround him at a map of the site as he points to exact locations of where things will be. He answers their questions with dizzying exactness.

Two first-aid stations will be positioned so that they are one of the first things visitors see at the memorial.

"Everyone entering the site will . . . know where they are," he explains.

One hundred portable toilets, three of them air-conditioned, will be stationed at the memorial. Most will be in two clusters flanking each side of an elaborate English garden that is under construction. Others will be placed near a hospitality tent and a souvenir stand.

There will be on-site metal detectors for groups that have chartered their own buses to the event. People who park at the satellite lots must get there by 9 a.m. and will pass through metal detectors before they are allowed on the shuttle buses.

"Our plan is a good plan," he said -- with one caveat. "Our advice to everyone is to come early."

Massive building project

Two hours later, Burrow is back in his office. The topic now is what's left to be done to complete the memorial. Concrete that will complete the plaza's back wall still hasn't been poured.

"When you're on a schedule, especially now, as tight as this, any rain day hurts you," said Jimmy Windle, project manager for Coleman Adams, the Lynchburg contractor building the memorial.

"But we'll have it cleaned up and ready to go," Windle assured.

By this week, all the concrete work should be completed.

A 20-foot-tall sculpture group called "Scaling the Wall," depicting soldiers climbing toward the arch, will arrive May 15.

Groundbreaking on a $7 million education center near the memorial is expected to begin soon.

One of the larger unanswered questions concerns the memorial's 50,000-gallon reflecting pool and whether water will flow evenly across it the way Roanoke architect Byron Dickson intends. Dickson, working with stone masons and plumbing contractors, first tested the pool and its two miles of underground pipe last week.

"We have a lot of pool work to do," said Burrow, who added: "I'm not concerned that we will be able to do that."

The monument's sheer size can be partly quantified by the massive amount of materials used to build it.

By the time the memorial is complete, more than 8,000 cubic yards of concrete will have been poured, Windle said. That amount could pave an airport runway, he noted.

Nearly 917 tons of granite, in seven different shades from quarries in Minnesota, South Dakota, California and Quebec, Canada, are incorporated into the memorial. The Overlord Arch alone weighs almost 300 tons.

Workers laid more than 6,000 tons of stone under the concrete to stabilize the site and moved more than 600,000 cubic yards of dirt. The memorial's light fixtures are strung together with 30 miles of wiring.

A project of that size requires an experienced hand. Burrow's reputation for transferring blueprints to bricks and mortar, for making visions become reality, is the reason he was hired.

"We knew about his track record as an administrator. We haven't been sorry," Slaughter said. "He's been every bit as good as we thought he would, and more. . . . He's right at home up there on the construction site. And he's hired good people to work for him."

Burrow's job involves much more than construction. As executive director of the foundation, Burrow has hired the entire foundation staff. It includes Jim Johnson, the foundation's fund-raising chairman, a former Marine with a national reputation for raising money, and William McIntosh, the foundation's vice president of education and a former West Point instructor.

Carol Tuckwiller, who built up and maintained the Virginia Room at the Roanoke Public Library for 30 years, joined the foundation last year as director of research and archives.

Bringing project to life

Burrow was sold on the idea of building the memorial soon after his first interview for the job. It took place on a Saturday morning in February 1995 in the den of Slaughter's home.

At that time, the memorial was little more than a vaguely formed idea in Slaughter's mind. The organization had raised less than $100,000 and there was no site.

Burrow quickly was won over by Slaughter's passion for the memorial and the former infantryman's regular-guy attitude.

"He's absolutely phenomenal one-on-one," Burrow said. The foundation has capitalized on that trait by having Slaughter meet personally with prospective donors.

Burrow bought into Slaughter's vision so deeply that he came to believe the foundation could raise more money at the national level than Slaughter had ever dreamed possible.

Two more job interviews with the foundation's executive committee followed before Burrow began his job in January 1996.

One of his first goals was to set up a national fund-raising program.

It was Burrow's background with Explore Park, of making former Roanoke City Manager Bern Ewert's vision become reality, that helped him early on with the memorial.

"As far as vision goes, I've yet to meet anybody who could match him," Burrow said. "But he didn't know how to make his vision a reality, and that's what I know how to do."

It was the same way with the memorial. Burrow remembers how difficult it was to explain to people how the foundation paid a million dollars to have the granite cut before construction even began at the site.

"There was an absolute leap of faith you had to believe in," Burrow said.

It was that leap of faith that Burrow and Slaughter had to convince donors of, too.

A $1 million donation by the late "Peanuts" cartoonist Charles Schulz in October 1997 allowed the foundation to break ground on the 88-acre site in November of that year. Since then, many more donations have followed.

To date, the foundation has taken in about $18 million. Aerial photographs of the memorial as construction has proceeded have been a great help in showing the progress that's being made.

Getting people to the site works even better, Burrow said.

"If we can get a prospect to the site, it works well," he said. "The site sells itself."

Jay Conley can be reached at 981-3114 or jayc@roanoke.com