SENSE OF THE CONGRESS.

SEC. 301. SENSE OF THE CONGRESS. (a) Findings.—Congress finds the following: (1) There are many thousands of public memorials scattered throughout the United States and abroad that commemorate military conflicts of the United States and the service of individuals in the Armed Forces. (2) These memorials have never been comprehensively cataloged.114 STAT. 2372 (3) Many of these memorials suffer from neglect and disrepair, and many have been relocated or stored in facilities where they are unavailable to the public and subject to further neglect and damage. (4) There exists a need to collect and centralize information regarding the location, status, and description of these memorials. (5) The Federal Government maintains information on memorials only if they are federally funded. (6) Remembering Veterans Who Earned Their Stripes (a nonprofit corporation established as RVETS, Inc. under the laws of the State of Nevada) has undertaken a self-funded program to catalogue the memorials located in the United States that commemorate military conflicts of the United States and the service of individuals in the Armed Forces, and has already obtained information on more than 7,000 memorials in 50 States. (b) Sense of the Congress.—It is the sense of the Congress that— (1) the people of the United States owe a debt of gratitude to veterans for their sacrifices in defending the Nation during times of war and peace; (2) public memorials that commemorate military conflicts of the United States and the service of individuals in the Armed Forces should be maintained in good condition, so that future generations may know of the burdens borne by these individuals; (3) Federal, State, and local agencies responsible for the construction and maintenance of these memorials should cooperate in cataloging these memorials and providing the resulting information to the Department of the Interior; and (4) the Secretary of the Interior, acting through the Director of the National Park Service, should— (A) collect and maintain information on public memorials that commemorate military conflicts of the United States and the service of individuals in the Armed Forces; (B) coordinate efforts at collecting and maintaining this information with similar efforts by other entities, such as Remembering Veterans Who Earned Their Stripes (a nonprofit corporation established as RVETS, Inc. under the laws of the State of Nevada); and (C) make this information available to the public.