“The battle came to symbolize all that is good about our country and our Corps. The story should be told again and again to our children and our grandchildren. It is a story simply about courage.”
The prominent location of the statue at the entrance to the Marine Corps Schools and on one of the most travelled arteries of traffic in the United States has caused it to attract much attention and has elicited much praise. It is believed vital to the interests of the Marine Corps to keep this memorial, depicting such a dramatic chapter in Marine Corps history, in a place where it is seen every day by thousands of passersby. (CMC Lemuel Shepherd Jr. 20 December 1949 in a memo to CMC Clifton Cates).