ANTHEM, Ariz.—At the 11th minute of the 11th hour on the 11th day of November, sunlight streams through marble pillars, illuminating the glass-mosaic Great Seal of the United States.
The Anthem Veterans Memorial combines art, geometry, and mathematics to maintain this precise alignment for the next 500 years, its architects say.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Verlan Roy, 84, a disabled Vietnam veteran from Phoenix, who came to see an early viewing of the annual solar alignment on Nov. 10.
Roy, his brother Edward, and several other veterans gathered around the monument as visitors snapped pictures and recorded videos.
“This is the first time I’ve come up here,” Roy, originally from Indiana, told The Epoch Times.
The memorial’s five white marble pillars range in height from 6 feet to 17 feet, each signifying a branch of the U.S. military. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)
For veterans such as Roy, the monument’s precisely calculated alignment holds special meaning.
Roy said he served in Vietnam as a radio operator from 1964 to 1966.
Radio operators were vital links in military field communications, but their role also made them targets for enemy fire, he said. Their life expectancy could be extremely short.
Roy recalled returning from Vietnam when his father died. Sixty years later, the memorial reminded him of the value of family, honor, duty, and sacrifice.
Directed sunlight illuminates the Great Seal of the United States. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)
A view of the Great Seal through one of five marble pillars. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)
“It is a place of honor and reflection for veterans, their families, and friends, and also is a place to show respect to those service men and women who have and continue to courageously serve our country,” the Anthem Community Council website says.
Five staggered white marble pillars symbolize the unity of the armed forces.
Ranging in height from six to 17 feet, each bears the seal of a military branch, arranged in the Department of Defense’s order of precedence.
The monument predates the 2019 establishment of the U.S. Space Force during President Donald Trump’s first administration.
“At precisely 11:11 am each Veterans Day … the sun’s rays pass through the pillars’ ellipses to form a solar spotlight on the glass mosaic of The Great Seal of the United States,” the council states.
Visitors pass the illuminated Great Seal. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)
Jim Martin, the project’s chief engineer, explained the monument’s precise solar geometry in a project description.
Martin used solar-positioning data from 2011 to 2111 to calibrate the monument. The calculations ensure its alignment will occur within 12 seconds of 11:11 a.m. each Veterans Day for the next 500 years.
“In complete truth, it is not perfect,” but it comes pretty close, Martin said, according to the Anthem Community Council.
