Ex-Servicemen Envision Pacific Wars Memorial on Camp Pendleton Site

A group of ex-servicemen that includes five retired Marine Corps generals announced Wednesday a plan to raise $15 million in private donations to build a Pacific Wars Memorial on a 35-acre site at Camp Pendleton.

In September, 1992, the camp’s 50th anniversary, the group hopes to unveil a monument, military museum, parade deck and memorial groves as a tribute to all branches of the service that fought in the Pacific from World War II to Vietnam.

“We think this will be as impressive as the Iwo Jima Memorial in Washington, D.C., or we won’t build it,” said Randy Mitchell, a retired Marine major who lives in Oceanside.

The idea of a museum was explored in 1985, but nothing was done until the base commander, Brig. Gen. R. H. Huckaby, resurrected the plan in late 1988 with retired Marine Lt. Gen. E. J. Miller.

Miller, of Carlsbad, said Tuesday that both Huckaby and Marine Corps Commandant Al Gray have approved leasing the property “for a nominal fee” to the nonprofit foundation that was formed and licensed with the state to build the memorial.

“There’s nothing similar to this on the West Coast,” Miller said. “The main emphasis is going to be based on integrity.”

The proposed memorial on gently sloping land next to the camp’s main gate would offer a 30,000-square-foot museum of military artifacts and battle displays, a library, small auditorium and gift shop.

A national competition probably will be held to seek a memorial design, and the foundation also wants the memorial to contain a Pacific Wars Grove of vegetation and trees native to the places where campaigns were fought.

The central memorial, easily visible from Interstate 5, “will symbolically pay tribute to the servicemen and women who have fought and died to protect the freedoms we enjoy in this country,” said a report written by Mitchell.

Miller emphasized that the memorial is meant to honor, inspire and teach the military, and inform and remind the public about the sacrifices made in the Pacific during World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

When Huckaby and Miller rekindled the plan, the first move was to create a committee of retired Marines in Southern California to serve as the executive board of the foundation. Miller is president of the board, to which Huckaby named members of his own staff.

“We haven’t any money yet, and we haven’t designed anything,” Mitchell said. “We’re at the first step, even though we’ve been working on this for a year.”

The foundation will begin seeking corporate and private donations early next year. “This will be an international campaign, and will raise money overseas,” Mitchell said. No government money is being sought, he said.