Impasse threatens statue to female vets

To artist Joe Mullins, recent history appears ready to repeat itself. Mullins was hired nearly 10 years ago to sculpt a statue to honor West Virginia’s female veterans. But a fight over the design all but derailed the project five years ago. Mullins now worries that a new attempt to complete the memorial is headed toward the same fate.

The Division of Culture and History has refused to fill its two seats on a new, 13-member committee assigned to assess the project and find it a permanent home. Mullins says that could leave the committee dominated by older veterans who dislike his statue, which was developed and approved by a different committee at the beginning of the decade. These critics have argued that the statue is too masculine, and should be wearing a skirt instead of fatigue pants.

…Mullins said a committee appointed to oversee the design offered him such examples as Rosie the Riveter and female figures in art from the French Revolution. “They wanted this aggressive, modern woman in fatigues. They didn’t want someone in makeup and high heels,” Mullins said. “The state of West Virginia ordered that, and that’s what I did.”

But a second committee was formed in 2004, in response to complaints from older veterans and others about the resulting design: a square-jawed woman, her hair tucked under a field cap, clad in a T-shirt, fatigue pants and combat boots and holding a flag.

Females go into combat wearing a skirt and heels, so the statue should reflect that.

Yeah, right! Are you freaking kidding me?! Who are these people that want a modern-day military woman’s statue in a cute little skirt? Who are these "older veterans" that disapproved of the statue design? I bet they are probably the same ones who, while on active duty, forced us to continue wearing skirts and high heels!

There’s nothing wrong with a statue in a skirt, this one is a photo my mom took of the female Marine statue on Parris Island. But to complain about and BLOCK a memorial to female veterans because it’s NOT wearing a skirt? Come on!

Next time that committee meets, a couple hundred female West Virginian veterans should show up in full camoflauge, combat boots, and hair pinned up out of the way as required, and park their non-skirt-wearing-selves inside the meeting room. They wouldn’t even have to say a single word.