Save our history. Stop the arch.
September 28, 2026
You probably won’t be surprised that Trump is charging ahead at full speed with his “triumphal arch” on the Potomac. However, it’s not too late to speak out against this gold-plated, 250-foot, $100 million travesty.
The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, an “independent” federal agency now stacked with MAGA types, has just shut down its talks with local authorities about the arch’s impact on other monuments, especially the symbolic, unobstructed view between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery. The ACHP offered the public a scandalously short 3 ½ days to comment on the proposal, ending at 11:59 pm Tuesday night. Below is what I wrote to Jaime Loichinger, director of the agency’s Office of Federal Agency Programs, at jloichinger@achp.gov.
As the son of a World War II veteran, a former resident of the Washington area, and most of all an outraged American, I urge you to do everything in your power to halt the grotesque arch between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.
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When I lived in Arlington County, the cemetery was a constant reminder of our history and the valor of the armed forces. I had the privilege of watching the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, carried out with solemn precision by the Army’s Third Infantry Regiment.
The unit holds an average of 24 to 27 funerals each weekday for active-duty troops, veterans, and members of their families. The 430,000 interred there represent every war from the Revolution until now. To blight, to desecrate this sacred land for the sake of one man’s vanity is beyond reprehensible. It insults not only those at Arlington but all who have served and sacrificed for our country.
Though my dad came home safely, my great-granduncle Clark Swan died a miserable death from dysentery in 1863 while serving in Grant’s army in Louisiana. He became another unknown soldier when desperately poor local people took the Union grave markers for firewood.
Clark and his comrades in the 95 thIllinois Volunteer Infantry were reburied after the war at the Vicksburg, Mississippi battlefield cemetery. When I visited, I found it to be quiet and dignified, a green expanse with rows of simple white stones. A fitting place for a farm boy who believed in the Union. If the cause he died for means anything to us today, we must keep Abe Lincoln and the honored dead at Arlington in sight of each other.
Originally published at https://davidsswan.com on September 28, 2026.
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