This is satire. The object does not exist, the placard is imagined, and every fact on it is real and sourced.

United States Military Triumphal Arch Gray granite, gold ornamentation, gilded statuary 250 feet overall; principal structure 166 feet Memorial Circle, Columbia Island, Washington, D.C. Applicant: U.S. Department of the Interior Project website: United States Triumphal Arch Foundation; chairman, Randy Evans Estimated cost: not disclosed; outside estimates reach $100 million Status: not on view

The United States Military Triumphal Arch is a 250-foot monument planned for Memorial Circle, at the west end of Arlington Memorial Bridge, on the axis between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery. Its granite faces carry “One Nation Under God” and “Golden Age of America.” Gold doors with sculpted panels open at the base, the design includes an observation deck and an event space, and a golden cherub holds a flaming torch at the summit. The principal structure rises 166 feet; the three gilded figures bring the total to 250.

The arch was designed to serve a second purpose. The foundation’s website states that “Inside the two massive columns will be storage for munitions,” that areas on the pedestal and observation deck “will be set aside for snipers, countersnipers,” and that the open ground at the base “will be designed for launching drones.” It calls the structure “Highly Secretive but, at the same time, a Top Level and Lethal structure,” and says of the project: “It is long overdue, and has been sought for many years, especially by the Military.” The plans submitted to the Commission omitted the munitions storage, the sniper positions, and the drone launch area. An Interior official said the design is “capable of hosting national security functions,” with the details under seal.

The National Capital Planning Commission approved the final site and building plans on November 5, 2026, by a vote of eight to four, after more than nine hours of public comment. The Commission accepted the applicant’s justification concerning the Height of Buildings Act, and encouraged the Department of the Interior to monitor construction noise so that its effect on Arlington National Cemetery might be reduced.

The object is not on view. Within an hour of the vote, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a temporary restraining order barring “construction, excavation, demolition, land-disturbance, utility installation, or roadway-closure activity” for fourteen days. She found that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in showing that the federal government “did not follow required legal processes,” and that “the harm is certain.” Of the government’s reading of a 1925 statute, she wrote: “Merely to state this argument is to reveal its flaws.”

The morning after the order, the White House promoted a new website. It describes the arch as “an American vision finally realized” and quotes the President: “This will be the greatest and most beautiful triumphal arch, anywhere in the world.”

A placard is a promise that the thing is nearby. This one is accurate about everything except the object. The granite, the gold, the height, the inscriptions, the sniper’s nest, the vote in the ten o’clock hour, the order within the hour after it, the website by breakfast: all of it is in the record, and little of it is in the ground. The Commission approved a building. The court stopped it. The White House published the pictures anyway, which is what a government does when the building is the picture.

Under the order, the government was required to tell its contractors and subcontractors that work was prohibited, and to report on that notification by November 9, 2026.

This column appears on November 9, 2026.

Sources

PRH | huffmanwrites.org | © Philip Huffman