War Memorials as Political Memory

War memorials acquire their landscape definition from sentiment, utility, social purposes, and historical interpretations. Social purposes of identity and service can be used to express sacred and nonsacred sentiment for war memory, but honor and humanitarianism are used only to symbolize the sacred in memorials. When physical settings, forms of sentiment, and social purpose are combined in memorials, war memory socially becomes either a part of everyday life or a celebration of the past. Forms of meaning in war memorials are influenced by reinterpretations of political history that enhance, contradict, or deemphasize the status of past wars.