Memorial Allowed After Debate Over Expression

"The wife is telling her husband goodbye, and at this moment, she would be downcast, and she does realize that it's going to be in her hands to keep things going," a defiant Judith Lindsay, who serves on the group's executive committee, said to a round of applause.

A hit! Burk later fired back, formalizing her request to have the artist take a second look by adding an amendment to the motion for approval.

With the exception of the support from Supervisor Andrea McGimsey (D-Potomac), the amendment met with a barrage that could have beaten back the British.

"To me, there's a symbolism there of a woman who is saddened by the fact that her husband is going off to war and there's a very distinct possibility that he will not come home," Supervisor James Burton (I-Blue Ridge) said. "I don't see it as demeaning to the woman at all."

"The government really shouldn't be getting into the business of telling artists how to do their job," Miller said.

The chairman delivered the final blow.

"When I look at that picture, I see my mother when my father went off to the Vietnam War -- a very strong woman but a woman who was very concerned . . . wondering if her husband will come home," Chairman Scott York (I-At Large) said. "I don't think it would have been much different back there in the Revolutionary period."

Seeing the conditions on the ground clearly now, Burk made a tactical retreat.

"By listening to the comments and hearing the different points of view, at this point I am going to pull the amendment. But I do want to make the point that I think it's very significant that the women who spoke tonight -- and the woman in the statue and all of your mothers that you talked about -- all of them made a sacrifice, and they all were very strong women," Burk said.

The proposal then received unanimous approval, with one member absent, and it is now up to the memorial committee, which has raised a little more than $50,000 so far, Moison said, to come up with the rest of the money and erect the statue by 2011, when the approval will expire.

Moison said that he is confident his group will get the needed funds, especially now that the project has been approved, and that he hopes to dedicate the memorial in July 2010. But the bid submitted by the artist last year was $250,000, he said, and the cost of copper, a component of bronze, has risen sharply since then.

Now that's enough to make anyone frown.