Unveiling the Memorial

Of course, students today who see this dramatic monument in front of the undergraduate library can be forgiven for thinking this is all a bit much for a big man on campus who never bothered with graduating and for whom there does not appear to be any official record that he killed any enemy in combat. In terms of French lives saved, McConnell’s ambulance driving seems a much greater help than the entire squad of American pilots and the expensive training they received. However, Ross F. Collins notes that the myths of war make it acceptable and, when wrapped in traditional narratives of the hero, can work as propaganda to build support for war. “War creates mythic narratives.”¹ After all, America did finally join the war in Europe, though German u-boots had a lot more to do with that. For UVA, the Great War, already in progress, offered a challenge and a promise that the university could be an important part of the national story, one that reflected back well on the student body as a whole. Monuments of crisis like this war encouraged young men to rise to the occasion and become knights of the air, heroes of legend, even as reports came in about the true nature of the conflict.² Part of the enthusiasm for the Lafayette Escadrille, and the monuments dedicated to it, came from an acknowledged understanding that these Americans not only strengthened allegiances with France but also communicated to the United States the nobility of engaging in combat. But there was also the appeal of McConnell himself for the people at UVA that helped to bring about this statue. Rich, popular, and talented, McConnell used his connections to make a mark on the world just as he had at the university. Older alumni and faculty, just the sort of people erecting so many monuments between the two world wars, could imagine that they had been like the daring pilot in their youth, and that their donations and teaching worked to create more like him. Much of this is fantasy, of course, but as Corey Van Landingham reminds us, “The present is always revising the past.”³ Community leaders wanted the war to be heroic, and their work to be heroic. The statue makes it so, at least in memory.