Walking along Pennsylvania Avenue or up from the Mall on 15th Street, visitors find
the memorial ensconced in a landscape of undulating mounds, evocative of the European landscapes transformed by war but now overgrown by grasses and trees. It is a metaphor for healing, for resilience and for recovery from one of the most tragic and costly wars the United States has ever fought.

A spiral path is at its heart, paved with 585 concrete planks to represent each day of American involvement in World War I. The path is a procession to the places of the war, commencing with the Pershing sculpture and a w waterfall. Water flows into a rill that traces the path, passing panels chronologically commemorating the war’s major campaigns.