Veterans group launches new campaign against Trump’s planned arch

VoteVets, the largest Democratic veterans group in the U.S., on Tuesday launched a new messaging campaign against President Trump’s planned arch across from Arlington National Cemetery.

Paul Eaton, a retired major general and VoteVets adviser, argued in a video posted to social media that the project is “entirely inappropriate and borders on sacrilege to the men and women buried” there to break the line of sight between the Lincoln Memorial and the cemetery with the 250-foot arch.

“The U.S. Park Service says that construction for this arch will be 20 hours a day for up to three years. Every weekday somebody is buried at Arlington National Cemetery,” Eaton said, pointing to the potential disruption of such solemn ceremonies.

The video also featured Karen Meredith, a Gold Star mother whose son is buried at Arlington, who argued a planned observation deck on the arch for tourists to look out over the city and cemetery would disrupt the quiet solitude of the hallowed ground.

“We don’t need tourists overlooking funerals. I’m just appalled,” Meredith said. “We need everybody to speak out about this.”

The campaign, which is also supported by political advocacy group Home of the Brave, comes as the administration has imminent plans to break ground on the arch. The National Park Service recently backed its proposed Memorial Circle location across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial — even after it found the monument would have “ adverse effects ” on several historic sites as well as the skyline of the nation’s capital.

Eaton pressed for veterans to reach out to their lawmakers and the National Capital Planning Commission to voice their opposition to the arch, on which the administration suggested it would begin construction this month.

“We are pleased to announce that after a very long wait (over 125 years!), we are preparing to start, over the next two-week period, the excavation work necessary for the Great Triumphal Arch and Military Observation Deck,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum wrote on social media Thursday.

Hoping to halt the planned project, several groups have brought lawsuits against the administration, including Vietnam War veterans , who are seeking an emergency court order to block the administration from breaking ground.