美国英语听力80篇1 Lesson05
Memorial Day (B)
The two black stone walls are set into the earth.
They are about 76 meters long.
(They form a) wide letter "V".
As you walk down into the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the walls rise above you.
Cut into the walls are the names of the 58,220 Americans who died or are still missing.
The names are listed in the order that the soldiers died.
Those who died together are remembered together.
Nearby is a statue of three soldiers. They seem to be looking at the wall of names.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial has become one of the most-visited places in Washington.
About one and one-half million people visit it every year.
People who go there experience powerful emotions. Many say it has become almost a holy place.
Almost any time of day, you can see people standing at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall.
They are looking at the name of a family member or friend who died in Vietnam.
Some reach out and touch the name. Some put a piece of paper over it.
They rub the paper with a pencil so the name on the wall appears on the paper.
In this way, they are able to take part of the memorial with them.
The success of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial influenced veterans of the Korean War to press for a memorial of their own.
Congress approved the idea.
In July 1995, the Korean War Veterans Memorial opened.
It is near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
It honors the men and women who served, and those who died, in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953.
The Korean War Veterans Memorial has several parts.
The war has been called "the Last Foot Soldier's War."
So, the memorial includes a series of nineteen statues of soldiers, walking.
Artist Frank Gaylord created the statues from steel.
Each is more than two meters high.
The soldiers seem to be moving up a hill toward a large American flag.
On one side of the memorial is a stone walkway.
It shows the names of the 22 countries that sent troops to serve in Korea under the United Nations command.
On the other side is a shiny stone wall.
It shows images of more than 2,400 support troops.
These include nurses, cooks, and truck drivers.
The faces were reproduced from photographs taken during the war.
The last part of the memorial is the round Pool of Remembrance.
The pool shows the number of American and United Nations forces who died or who were wounded,
captured, or missing in the war.
The number totals more than 2,000,000.
Cut into the wall above the pool is the simple yet powerful message: "Freedom is not free."
The newest war memorial in the Washington area has a long name.
It is called the Women in Military Service for America Memorial.
It is very different from the other war memorials.
It recognizes the service of all the women who served in all of the nation's wars.
1,800,000 American women were part of the country's military forces.
Former President Ronald Reagan signed legislation in 1986 to honor American women in the military.
A retired air force general, Wilma Vaught, was chosen to lead the effort to build the memorial.
The memorial took eleven years to build. It cost more than 21,000,000 dollars.
The women's military memorial opened in October 1997.
It is near the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
Michael Manfredi and Marion Gail Weiss designed the women's memorial.
It is a place of glass, water and light.
The memorial has a large wall that is shaped in a half-circle.
In front of the memorial, 200 jets of water meet in a pool.
The designers say this water fountain celebrates the combined strength of many individuals.
Inside the memorial, the stories of women in wartime are cut into glass panels.
The memorial also has information about military women on a computer.
It includes names, pictures, service records and personal statements of about 250,000 military women.
General Vaught says it was important for women in the military to be honored because their efforts have not been recognized.
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