From home, you can type a name into a website , and a few seconds later you can watch it rise across an 18-foot digital flag on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Visitors use onsite interactive kiosks or scan a QR code at the physical installation rather than typing a name. Whether that be a grandfather, a mother, a friend, or yourself, USAA probably has it covered. For the first time, there is a single place that gathers nearly every American who has ever put on the uniform, and it lets you find the one who belongs to you. USAA's National Military Monument opened July 28 on the Lincoln Memorial Plaza in Washington, D.C., as a temporary installation marking the country's 250th birthday. Sponsored by the financial services company, it honors more than 41 million Americans who have served in every conflict from the Revolutionary War to the present day. What Is This Monument? Two double-sided displays make up the monument, each 18 feet tall and 108 feet long, designed to look like American flags rippling in the wind. Instead of stars and stripes, the surfaces carry names. They move constantly. Every 45 seconds, the screens show 1,500 names on each side, roughly 6,000 scrolling at once, and then turn over to the next set. George Washington was the first name displayed when the monument opened. The Unknown Soldier will be the last. Somewhere in the millions between them, you might notice that the name John Smith is listed 4,487 times . Standing between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, it occupies one of the most heavily visited stretches of the National Mall during the anniversary summer. Most memorials there mark a single war; this one is trying to honor all of them at once. How to Find Your Service Member The reason to visit, though, if it's not to simply watch the names of strangers, is to find your own names. At the monument, visitors scan a QR code and search for a name. The search returns a code which a USAA staff member uses to then summon that name onto the flags, where families can watch it appear and photograph it overhead. Veterans have stood on the plaza waiting quietly for a father or a grandfather to surface across the display. What many people will not realize is that the search does not require a trip to Washington. Anyone can look through the full database from their home at Monument250.usaa360.com/search , confirm that a loved one is included, and see the record for themselves. For families flung too far from the capital, or for the millions who will not be able to make the trip before the installation closes, the monument is reachable from your phone on the couch.

If a Name Is Missing Not everyone who served will turn up in the first search, and that is by design rather than oversight. No single record of every American service member exists. To assemble the list, USAA drew from a patchwork of sources, including National Park Service records, World War II Army enlistment files, prisoner-of-war lists, a Department of Veterans Affairs records system and veteran service organizations. They even combed through USAA members who chose to be included. However, gaps in old paperwork and privacy protections mean some names are not there yet. For those cases, the monument was built to grow on. Visitors and families can submit a name to be added , and USAA has said the list will keep expanding as service is verified and new records come in. A veteran absent today may be present next month. The effect of all those names in motion is harder to describe than the engineering behind it. Reduced to a number, 41 million is abstract. Rendered as names, shown one after another after another, it becomes a procession of individuals. Each one was a person who left their home and family for something larger. It’s this idea that behind every stripe on the flag is a life with a story the designers were after. It tends to resonate hardest the moment a visitor recognizes a name they came looking for. Jeri Gramegna, the mother of this reporter, is also the mother, wife, daughter and granddaughter of combat veterans. She told Military.com that for all the pride she felt looking up her family's names on the website, what brought her to tears was a name she went looking for on purpose: Lt. Gary Thornton, a prisoner of war whose name she wore on a bracelet during the Vietnam War. She never met him, she said, but she had carried his name for years, and seeing it again brought back both her remembrance of him and her gratitude for everyone who has served. These moments are happening at home, but have also filled the plaza since opening day. Families gather around the kiosks, while older veterans gaze out into memories as a name from their own past climbs the screen. Try To See It Before It’s Gone This part of the experience will not linger around for very long. The physical monument is open free to the public every day from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. and is scheduled to come down Aug. 23, after roughly four weeks on the Mall. Anyone hoping to see a name you hold dear rise across the flags in person has until that date and time. Those who cannot make it out to Washington still have the database at their fingertips, and the quiet possibility it offers that by simply typing in the name of someone who served you will remember them, when maybe time had even forgotten.