In early 1992, EBA was approached by a Korean War veteran named Ron Jabaut, to do “a few sketches for a memorial.” The veterans of the Korean War call it the “forgotten war”, and apparently there was no state memorial to California veterans. Forty-five years after the war ended, with nearly as many casualties as in Vietnam, Ron and his handful of volunteer veterans knew that it was up to them if there was ever to be a memorial to these fallen heroes.
A new cemetery in Santa Nella, called the San Joaquin National Cemetery had given preliminary permission to build a memorial there. The National Cemetery System has a few “natural” facilities, which preclude any grand designs that stood out above the natural terrain. The principal program requirement was to engrave the names and service branches of the 2,495 California Veterans lost. After six years of fundraising by the group of volunteers, and several design iterations, The Remembrance Memorial for California Korean War Veterans was finally built and dedicated on August 1,1998. In 2002 the California State Legislature made it the official state memorial to Korean War veterans.
Status: Built
Location: Santa Nella, CA
