If war is still a sad accompaniment of human existence, it follows that our children will at some point construct new monuments memorializing some armed struggle, much as our parents built the memorials at Normandy and the Baby Boom generation built the Vietnam Memorial. These poignant artifacts will continue to tug at us and remind us of the costs of hostile struggle.

It would be folly to say that one monument honors war’s suffering and sacrifice better than any other. Though all wars are alike in that they are armed conflicts between bitter foes, their rationales, duration, effects and aftermaths are all different.

That is why some monuments honor losing causes or even people who never raised arms against their enemies. Others honor Pyrrhic victories or struggles where soldiers fell needlessly en masse, thanks to the orders of their inept or oblivious generals.