This project addresses the presence of WWI in our national consciousness. It seeks to be both park and memorial, inviting the public to enter the resonant ground of the trench, to travel an echoic path of the war’s narrative, and to then experience the healing release of emergence into a space lined with trees. Upon entering the historic field from the south, one becomes aware of the statue of General Pershing surveying the field of 5,340 stones. Each stone commemorates ten servicemen who died in battle. Thirteen flags stand at the North side, honoring every American campaign of the war.  A wall of falling water at the outermost edge marks the shift from trench to celebratory platform. This horizontal plane records the memorial’s function of historical awareness and also elevation into what Whitman called “the democratic vista.”