Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi 1871, not finishing the massive sandstone statue until 1880. In 1871, he made his first trip to the United States, where he pitched the idea of a massive statue gifted from the French to the Americans in honor of the centennial of American independence. The idea, which had first been broached to him in 1865 by his friend Édouard René de Laboulaye, resulted in the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor. After years of work and fundraising, the statue was inaugurated in 1886. During this period, Bartholdi also sculpted a number of monuments for American cities, such as a
The Special Warfare Memorial Statue The Special Warfare Memorial Statue The Special Warfare Memorial Statue — known informally as Bronze Bruce — was the first Vietnam Memorial in the United States. It was created in 1968 by sculptor Donald De Lue (1897-1988) and dedicated on November 19, 1969. The statue is the centerpiece of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command's Memorial Plaza at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and is symbolic of all the command's soldiers. A Special Forces soldier was chosen as the model for the statue since nearly all Army special operations soldiers killed in Vietnam were "Green Berets." According to the United States