Over the past 40 years, memorials to America’s 20th century wars have sprung up across Washington, D.C., with one conspicuous omission: There was no national memorial to veterans of World War I in our nation’s capital.

“If you ask anybody on the streets where the World War I memorial is in D.C., most of them will point you to the D.C. Veterans Memorial,” said Joe Weishaar. “For a long time people assumed that it was the national memorial. But the little rotunda that’s there is only to district residents.”

In 2015, Weishaar was a 25-year-old intern at a Chicago architecture firm when he heard about an open design competition for D.C.’s first national World War I memorial. “I set up a shelf in my closet, I set my computer on the shelf, and that was my office,” he said. “I was doing this, like, in nights and weekends after work.”

He sent off his design and then forgot about it, until … “I got a very strange phone call and they’re like, ‘You’re one of five finalists. We need you in Washington, like, tomorrow,’” he said.

Weishaar had never even been to Washington. “No, I had never been. Didn’t own a suit!”

Weishaar’s design beat out more than 360 applicants from over 20 countries.   

When the memorial opened to the public in 2021, only one thing was missing: an intricate, 60-foot-long bronze relief, the memorial’s centerpiece, created by classical sculptor Sabin Howard, a firebrand and self-appointed bulwark against the scourge of modern art. “Artists like de Kooning or Jackson Pollock, I’m in opposition to them,” said Howard. “It’s a scam, what’s happened in the last 100 years. I’m here to rectify that scam.”

For his tableau depicting World War I, he said, “I threw out the last hundred years of history in the art world, and I went back to what preceded that period of time.”

Shepherding Howard through the byzantine approvals process was his client, the Congressionally-created World War I Centennial Commission.

“You go to these meetings, and none of the people in the room are artists; they’re all lawyers and, you know, Washington bureaucrats,” Howard said. “The commission asked me, ‘We need to see more – a dying soldier, perhaps, and more suffering.’ I started posing the models. You had madness, you had amputations, death. So, I went pretty deep.”

When he brought that iteration into the commission office, he said chairs were literally thrown in the room.

“I was treated as, ‘You’re working for us.’ And I took that for a long time. But then we got to a moment in the relationship, I stood up and I said, ‘I will not compromise this design. And if you don’t like it, you sculpt it, and I’ll send you some webinars.’”

The World War I Centennial Commission said they are “proud of the magnificent Memorial that Joe Weishaar and Sabin Howard have created,” and that it “provides a model of how a complex and collaborative process can work.”

Howard may lack tact, but he doesn’t lack confidence. His sculpture charts a soldier’s wartime journey, from his ambivalent departure, to his wordless homecoming, to the animal savagery of combat in-between. Pointing to one soldier, he said, “If you look at this figure, I don’t think in the history of art that there’s ever been a figure with this much explosive energy.”

Howard’s “movie in bronze,” consisting of 38 figures weighing 25 tons, ends with a soldier, home from war, lowering a helmet to a young girl.

For World War I historian Jennifer Keene, the sculpture’s final tableau illustrates the heavy toll the war exacted on its veterans: “They were not prepared for what they were going to find – the quagmire, the terror of artillery shells, rats and lice and trench feet. No, they are completely unprepared.”

Keene said, “I think that idea at the end, that it’s just a gesture, right? ‘Here’s the helmet.’ There’s no words there, because maybe there aren’t words that can really describe what that soldier has been through.”

The sculpture, which will be unveiled at a ceremony later this month, took nine years of Sabin Howard’s life. “Yeah, but that’s not a lot, when you think about it,” he said.

Asked what he hopes visitors to the memorial a century from now would experience, Howard replied, “I want the visitor 100 years from now to have the same feeling that I had when I went to go see the David when I was 25. We are made in God’s image. That sculpture is made in God’s image. So is mine. It’s a simple thing, but very deep.”

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Story produced by Robert Marston. Editor: Joseph Frandino. 

      
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Four games. That’s how long it took for the Arizona State defense to generate its first turnover in 2023.

Forty seconds. That’s how it long it took for ASU to get its first turnover for this 2024 season. 

Redshirt junior linebacker Zyrus Fiaseu read Wyoming junior quarterback Evan Svoboda perfectly and intercepted the Mesa Red Mountain alum on the second play of the game, returning it for a touchdown to start the year in near-perfect fashion for the Sun Devils to establish an early 7-0 lead.

They didn’t stop there either.

On the very next offensive drive for the Cowboys, facing a long third-and-23, the ASU defense again capitalized on a mistake from Svoboda, this time as another linebacker – junior Keyshaun Elliott – intercepted Svoboda on an overthrown pass. Seven plays later, redshirt sophomore Ian Hershey booted a 29-yard field goal to make it 10-0 at the 6:19 mark in the first quarter.

Coach Kenny Dillingham called the linebacker room the “most improved” during the preseason. And less than 10 minutes into the first game, the group proved him right. It’s also a testament to ASU’s ability in the transfer portal as both Fiaseu and Elliott are transfers. The Sun Devils picked up 30 transfers this past offseason, with the class ranking No. 30 in the nation and fourth in the Big 12, according to 247Sports.

ASU added its third turnover of the game in the third quarter when Svoboda attempted to hit wide receiver Tyler King on a swing pass to the left, but threw the ball behind his intended target. ASU redshirt senior Justin Wodtly scooped it up and ran 6 yards for the touchdown to make it 41-0 with 6:07 to go in the third quarter.

It was all part of a superb evening from the ASU defense, which held Wyoming to just 53 yards of total offense in the first half. Wyoming didn’t score its first points until 2 seconds remained in the game.

One of the themes of spring and fall camp for ASU was emphasizing the need for turnovers.

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“I expect us to run to the football, and I expect us to get takeaways this year,” ASU head coach Kenny Dillingham said ahead of the season.

ASU didn’t get its first takeaway until the first quarter of the fourth game of last season against USC when linebacker Tate Romney recovered a fumble. The Sun Devils were the last team among FBS schools to force their first turnover last season.

ASU was a dismal 127th — out of 130 schools — last year in turnover margin. Rice, Nebraska, and Temple were the only schools to finish below ASU in 2023.

That trend is now shifting in favor of the Sun Devils. The message is starting to get through.

“It’s incredible,” Dillingham said in his postgame news conference. “Every single day — guys are probably bored of it — we start our team meeting and the only two things I show are: effort plays and takeaways. That’s it. Bad ball security, takeaways, effort. That’s it. I don’t show anything else. It’s those two things, over and over. It’s just to get in their mind that if you play really hard and you win the turnover battle, all these schemes that you’re about to go do are awesome, but they’re obsolete. And we have to be able to do those two things, and then go play smart football. That was game-changing when you turn the ball over at that rate. It was as close to a shutout as you can possibly get. So in my mind, it’s a shutout and it’s two defensive touchdowns. Awesome job by our defense tonight. They deserve it because they’ve been working hard.”

ASU also executed on running the ball as senior running back Cam Skattebo (11 carries, 49 yards, one touchdown) and redshirt senior running back DeCarlos Brooks (six carries, 47 yards, one touchdown) led a potent, multipronged ground attack. 

Even redshirt sophomore quarterback Sam Leavitt got in on the action, showcasing his scrambling ability to the tune of 47 yards on eight carries.

In all, the Sun Devils rushed for 241 yards on 49 carries as a team. ASU had 499 yards of total offense on the night in a commanding 48-7 victory.

Logan Stanley is a sports reporter with The Arizona Republic who primarily focuses on high school, ASU and Olympic sports. To suggest ideas for human-interest stories and other news, reach out to Stanley at logan.stanley@gannett.com or 707-293-7650. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @LSscribe.

Colorado police hope a missing litter of purebred Doberman puppies could be the key to solving the suspicious death of a decorated dog breeder, “a rare case” that left the dog community with jaws on the ground, one expert said.

Paul Peavey, 57, was found dead on his 110-acre Idaho Springs property by a search party of concerned family members on Saturday. 

Although his three adult dogs were unharmed and brought to an area animal shelter, sheriff’s office communication manager Jenny Fulton said on Wednesday that his latest litter of as many as 10 puppies was nowhere to be found. 

Police believe the animals, each of which was microchipped, were sold on social media. Anyone who has purchased a Doberman puppy in the Colorado area since Peavey was last seen alive on Aug. 19 is asked to contact the department or bring the animal to a shelter or veterinary office where it can be scanned. 

“This is such a rare case that our jaws were on the ground,” American Kennel Club spokesperson Brandi Hunter Munden told Fox News Digital. “We don’t see this – this is not what the sport is made of. It’s tragic to see that this man lost his life, especially because he dedicated his life to dogs. This is not typical behavior among dog breeders. This is definitely different.”

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Fulton said Peavey delivered two litters this summer, and anyone who purchased an animal directly from Peavey’s Elite European Dobermans business since June is also asked to contact Clear Creek County detectives. The department wrote in its social media post that “this will help [them] determine how many puppies are unaccounted for.”

“We’ve gotten over 40 tips related to this investigation; probably 25 of those are related to puppies,” Fulton said. “Of those, there are probably half a dozen who have purchased a puppy from Paul.”

The department has not disclosed the condition that Peavey was found in, only saying that they suspect foul play was involved in his death. Fulton said further information will be released after his autopsy.

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As many as 10 Doberman puppies were missing from Peavey’s property when he was found dead. They were all microchipped, and detectives hope they will be found and provide a lead in the unsolved case. (Facebook/Elite European Dobermans)

“We haven’t quite come to a determination on motive yet,” Fulton said.

Police do not believe that there is a danger to the public, the department wrote in its press release.

“Dog flipping” – the practice of stealing high-value dogs and selling them on Craigslist for a profit – is on the rise in many parts of the United States, according to the FACE Foundation (Foundation for Animal Care and Education).

Although it’s rare, breeders have fallen victim to mass thefts of their purebred dogs. In 2022, for example, a Long Island, New York, dog breeder’s home was broken into by thieves, according to ABC 7, and five French bulldog puppies and two adult dogs were stolen.

“Normally, a dog theft is something quick; they snatch the dog away because it’s outside, from its human. But you generally don’t hear about breeders being targeted in this way,” Munden said. 

Paul Peavey is pictured at a Colorado Kennel Club show in February 2024 with his prized stud, Jax Von Maximus. (Facebook/Elite European Dobermans)

Victims of dog flipping are generally targeted in advance, Munden said. 

“Someone is aware that they have a litter or an expensive dog breed. It’s someone who had to pay attention,” she said. 

Dog trainer Tom Davis told Fox News Digital that purebred Dobermans sell for between $1,000 and $5,000.

Although Peavey did not disclose pricing for his dogs on his website, he priced stud services from his prized male, Jax Maximus Von Zipper, at $7,500.