By JAY CONLEY
THE ROANOKE TIMES

Archives Reprint

   A year ago, they stood proudly, some teary-eyed, under a blistering June sun as taps played and Air Force fighter jets thundered overhead.

    Before 21,000 people, President George W. Bush saluted the sacrifice of World War II veterans and their fallen comrades as the National D-Day Memorial was dedicated on June 6.

    By some estimates, it was the largest massing of D-Day veterans since the 50th anniversary of the June 6, 1944, invasion in Normandy, France. At the sprawling granite and concrete memorial on a hilltop overlooking the small city of Bedford, the old war heroes basked in the spotlight of onlookers eager to hear their gripping stories.

    Since then, most of the news about the National D-Day Memorial Foundation has been negative. It is mired $5 million in debt; most of its original board members have resigned; and federal authorities are investigating its shaky finances. Tuesday, the memorial's principal contractor filed a lawsuit seeking to recover about $2 million it says the foundation still owes for construction.

    But by at least one yardstick, and perhaps others, the huge edifice is an enormous success: Roughly 372,000 people have visited it, more than 3 1/2 times the number of visitors the foundation was expecting this time last year.

    "I'm extremely pleased with that volume," foundation president William McIntosh said.

    At a news conference Wednesday, McIntosh pledged the foundation would pay its debts eventually. It has taken in a total of $1.6 million in donations and receipts in the past year and has no plans to declare bankruptcy, he said.

    Although the foundation board will meet today to discuss the organization's debt, no big ceremony is planned to mark the memorial's first anniversary. At most, there will be a handful of foundation officials on hand, plus whatever visitors show up, McIntosh said. But he and other officials expect it to continue to be a solid tourist draw. More than 50,000 people have toured the memorial since January, McIntosh noted.

    One of those is Robbie VanNatter. A resident of Houston, Texas, VanNatter stopped by the memorial Friday afternoon during a trip to Roanoke to visit relatives.

    "It's just a moving experience," he said solemnly. "It reinforces your thoughts and feelings about being an American."

    In May, more than 7,000 Virginia school children visited the memorial as part of a history lesson on World War II. The foundation recently became accredited by the state Department of Education's Standards of Learning curriculum, and memorial officials expect that will prompt many more student and class visits in the future.

    With the summer travel season on the horizon, tourism experts expect an even greater influx of visitors.

    "I think it will do as well or better than last year," Bedford City-County tourism director Nanci Drake said last week.

    Drake, whose office in the Bedford Visitors Center is just beneath the memorial at the bottom of the hill off U.S. 460, has initiated a marketing campaign that targets not only the D-Day Memorial but Bedford County attractions such as Smith Mountain Lake, Poplar Forest and the Peaks of Otter. For months, ads promoting the city and county's attractions have run in American Heritage, Modern Maturity and Smithsonian magazines as well as travel guides and military and historical publications, she said. The campaign seems to be working.

    "They're coming for a variety of reasons," Drake said, "but we get calls about the memorial every day."

    "The thing that has helped us most is tour buses," McIntosh said.

    McIntosh said the memorial is being packaged into regional and multi-state tours that focus on themes like Virginia Civil War sites, 20th century history and national monuments.

    "Once people actually come up here and see what we have, they're really impressed," said Ann Meyer, the foundation's site coordinator.

    It doesn't hurt that the June issue of National Geographic had a two-page sidebar on the memorial that accompanied a long feature story on the D-Day invasion. The magazine's Web site also includes a story on Bedford, with directions to the memorial and a list of other tourist attractions.

    The story comes six months after media attention over an FBI investigation into the foundation's financial records. McIntosh announced in October that the foundation is behind in paying $5 million to a local bank and contractors who built the memorial. Foundation officials also say up to $2 million in donations restricted for future construction projects may have been spent on current bills.

    In April, Coleman-Adams, the memorial's main contractor, and the memorial's architect, Byron Dickson, filed liens against the memorial in an effort to recover more than $2 million in expenses owed to them. On Tuesday, Coleman-Adams filed a lawsuit over the money it is owed in Bedford County Circuit Court. The foundation is trying to develop a repayment plan to pay the architect, the construction firm and two other creditors who are owed money. As of yet, there is no timetable for paying the creditors.

    Dave Carroll, A World War II veteran who lives at Smith Mountain Lake and is one of 250 volunteers at the memorial, hopes the investigation concludes soon and the memorial can go back to raising more funds to build an education center for future generations.

    "It's absolutely an emotional experience for me to do this once a week," Carroll said. "It's so important for young people to see this."

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