That title sounds like part of a Disney song, but that is what has happened!  Our design was approved!  In fact, it was approved last March, however it had a big tag on it.  The VA had approved us as a “Non-Standard Monument” which put us in the class of a 50-foot tall statue of Athena with a blinking red light atop to warn off commercial airliners!  That, plus requirements for engineering soil studies, special measurements and drawings, plus more things that would have just priced our monument into the stratosphere.  So it really was not “approved” in our eyes.  Enter the Director of Miramar National Cemetery.  She stood up for us, and after heavy, late-night negotiations in the dark alleys of Washington DC, finally the VA relented and agreed that our monument should be approved as a regular, “Standard Monument.”  With that welcome word, we asked the monument company to produce our design and just today, the 24^th of Sep, it is being crated up to be shipped to Vista, California, for further placement on the cement foundation that the company there placed two weeks ago.  We of the Design Team are so pleased.  We appreciate the support all of our donors who gave so generously.  We appreciate the work the Design Team members have done.  We appreciate the Director of the Cemetery.  We appreciate so many things in life.

The Dedication Ceremony will be on Friday, 5 December 2025, starting at 10 AM at Admiral Baker Park, and we want you to come.  If you are an Active Duty Diver, Reserve Diver, ex-Diver, or Retired Diver, we especially want you to come.  Hopefully Active Duty commands will release their divers on 5 December in time to make the ceremony before 10 AM (written that way for the civilians…).  This monument is for you and for those divers who have gone before us.  The diving community includes: Salvage, SEABEE UCT, SEALs, EOD, and USMC Combatant Divers, and all are represented on the monument with oversize Bronze custom-made diver pins.  Afterwards, we will have a post-ceremony party that will go until 4 PM that will have a band and chow, and the big raffle ticket drawing (first place is the Glock 19!).   Finally!

Dedicating a monument is a significant event, like the christening and launching a ship….  Except 500 years from now the monument will still exist.  Invitations are being sent to many VIPs, and general invitations are going to commands and mailing lists we have obtained from the Dark Web.