Stephen Kobasa Photograph
Karl Lang, Corporal Timothy Francis Ahern Memorial, 1937
bronze, granite
West River Park, near the intersection of Derby Avenue and Ella Grasso Boulevard
The story is inscribed beneath the statue: on a World War I battlefield, a corporal finds himself the highest ranking among the ominously described “skeleton platoons” which are all that remain from the slaughter. On a scavenged piece of paper, he declares himself prepared for “any duty,” yet “ready for replacements.” The war is not over. But what is striking about this military monument is that its soldier is unarmed, and it is easy enough to imagine an alternative history: a private surrender, the farewell note of a man later declared missing, or some later Homer, writing at the gates of our own Troy in flames.