Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they've made a difference.
The Marines don't have that problem. The fight over the Air Force's proposed memorial just 500 feet from the Marine Corps' Iwo Jima statue in Arlington is much more than a turf war. The Marine Corps memorial and the 25-acre park that surrounds it offer an oasis for reflection and refuge. The addition of an Air Force memorial, with an underground visitor center and a parking lot, would turn the area into a military Disneyland. And what would be lost, should that happen, cannot be measured by traffic jams and T-shirt vendors alone.