Lawmakers, service members celebrate authorization of Global War on Terrorism memorial

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WASHINGTON – Several bipartisan lawmakers, as well as dozens of U.S. military veterans, service members and Gold Star family members, gathered on the National Mall Thursday morning for the first annual "Ruck the Reserve" event celebrating the authorization of a highly anticipated Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) memorial. 

The event was spearheaded by the nonprofit GWOT Memorial Foundation, which has been raising money and pushing Congress for a memorial on the National Mall along what is known as "the reserve" since 2017.

People gather for the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation's first annual "Ruck the Reserve" event. (Fox News/Audrey Conklin)

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa; Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H.; Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis.; and Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., helped lead an effort to pass two bills – the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Location Act and The Global War on Terrorism Memorial Act – authorizing the construction of a GWOT memorial on the National Mall in spite of Washington bureaucracy.

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"We originally got the authorization passed, and then we got the bill passed that authorizes a place on the Mall. Now, we have to do the hard work of continuing to raise money and to make sure that the project moves forward," Gallagher told Fox News Digital at Thursday's event, which began at the Lincoln Memorial. "As you can see, it's a great group of veterans, people who have been involved in the legislative process. And I think it's a testament that it's been truly a bipartisan effort."

Lawmakers at the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation's first annual "Ruck the Reserve" event. (Fox News/Audrey Conklin)

"It's a huge hurdle that we got over, so now, it's full speed ahead," he added.

In 2017, former President Trump signed the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Act, which authorized the memorial on federal land along the reserve in Washington, D.C., but it did not provide a specific location.

The legislation met resistance from the National Park Service. The acting associate director of park planning told a Senate subcommittee in June 2021 that the reserve was a "completed work" based on the Commemorative Works Act of 1986, meaning the construction of new memorials along the Mall was not permitted.

Boy marches at the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation's first annual "Ruck the Reserve" event. (Fox News/Audrey Conklin)

The latest version of the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Act waives the Commemorative Works Act and now requires the National Park Service to work with the Global War on Terrorism Foundation to find a location on the National Mall. Crow sponsored the House version of the 2021 bill, and Ernst sponsored the Senate version.

The foundation has picked out three potential locations for the GWOT memorial between the World War II and Lincoln Memorials. Participants of Thursday's "ruck" marched by each location Thursday morning.

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"It means the world to me to know that this memorial is going to be right here on our National Mall, and it will honor all of those tremendous men and women who served in our armed forces in the Global War on Terror, but it also honors their families and those that lost loved ones," Ernst told Fox News Digital. "It will be a place of remembrance. A place where families and communities can come gather together and just remember the significant service and sacrifice over the past 20 years of the [GWOT]."

Sen. Joni Ernst seen at the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation's first annual "Ruck the Reserve" event. (Fox News/Audrey Conklin)

She added that the annual "Ruck the Reserve" event will continue to grow in the coming years as construction of the memorial gets closer to reality. 

GWOT Memorial Foundation President and CEO Michael Rodriguez, who joined the U.S. Army in 1992 and served as a Green Beret until he medically retired in 2013 due to his combat injuries, said during Thursday's event that the memorial will be the "most broad, diverse and inclusive war memorial that has ever been built."

Michael Rodriguez at the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation's first annual "Ruck the Reserve" event. (Fox News/Audrey Conklin)

"We're mostly going to honor our brothers and sisters … that never came home. We're also honoring everyone who has served. War touches you. Many of us have set foot on a battlefield, and it's going to come home with you," Rodriguez said on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. "Some of us, it's a little more obvious than others. We're also honoring the family. I've often said the most challenging appointment for me were not the 10 I went on, but it was the one where I watched my son deploy to the same regions of Afghanistan to do almost the exact same mission I did some years afterward."

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The memorial will honor service members, veterans and families who served in the GWOT starting 20 years ago after 3,000 people died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and ending just before September 2021, when 13 U.S. service members were killed in an explosion in Kabul after President Biden pulled all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by Aug. 31 of last year.

People march at the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation's first annual "Ruck the Reserve" event (Fox News/ Audrey Conklin)

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After the 13 service members, including 11 Marines, one Army soldier and a Navy corpsman, were killed on Aug. 26 in a suicide bombing outside Hamid Karzai International Airport, D.C. residents and visitors held a vigil at the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia, to remember the fallen.

Gold Star families say a GWOT memorial on the Mall will provide a unified gathering place for all service members and their loved ones to remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere over the past two decades.