BEDFORD, Va. - For years, you could count on seeing Richard B. Burrow - looking "very executive" in his crisp business suit, as the local residents liked to say - lunching at the Snack Shop and regaling townspeople with talk of the cubic yards of concrete or the weight of granite planned for the National D-Day Memorial here.
As president of the memorial's foundation since 1996, Burrow seemed as fervent about having the monument built quickly as the World War II veterans who knew that many of their comrades wouldn't live to see it.
When the memorial was dedicated June 6 last year - in a stirring ceremony that attracted President Bush and 24,000 spectators from all over the country - this small town in southwest Virginia beamed with pride over the sprawling $25 million monument on a scenic hilltop.
But in some ways, the memorial, which has drawn 400,000 visitors, outgrew the small-town soul that gave it life. And one year later, the view from the top is startlingly different.
In June, a federal grand jury indicted Burrow - accusing him not of pocketing any money but of lying to a bank about how much money had been pledged to the foundation, so as to secure a loan to finish the memorial in time for the dedication.
A trial on four charges related to bank fraud is scheduled to begin Sept. 3 in Lynchburg. If convicted, Burrow, a 55-year-old former Roanoke city engineer, could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison and be fined $1 million.
The indictment rattled the foundation and upset this patriotic, flag-strewn town, which is thought to have lost more sons - 19 - than any other American community its size in the invasion of June 6, 1944.
The shadow of a federal inquiry has imperiled the foundation's fund raising, leaving the town engaging in "finger-pointing galore," as the mayor puts it.
In addition, a shake-up of the foundation's board last year by Burrow's successor left some of the memorial's organizers so disillusioned that the Bedford County government considered cutting off its spending for the memorial, angry that no local officials were left on its board.
"I wish I'd never heard of D-Day," says Robert Slaughter, a 77-year-old D-Day veteran and former board chairman who conceived the idea for the memorial 16 years ago.
$5.6 million shortfall
At the heart of the dispute - and of a smoldering debate that has splintered Bedford - is the issue of whether the case against Burrow is warranted.
When he resigned last year, after the memorial's dedication, Burrow left a $5.6 million shortfall, having kept the board in the dark about the project's financial health.
The foundation is now being sued for nearly $3 million in what contractors say are unpaid bills. The U.S. attorney said Burrow's actions damaged the foundation's reputation, credit rating and fund raising.
Still, you hear much sympathy for a man described as a smart, hard-working executive who, if he misled lenders, did so under enormous pressure and for the best of intentions: to get the war memorial built in time for those it honored to see it.
"On balance, who can shake a fist at this man?" asks Marie Batten, Bedford County's voter registrar. "You see that memorial on a pristine, clear day, framed by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Peaks of Otter - I would dare anyone to come down and not be touched.
"I'm a rule-follower. But I have such appreciation for what has happened in this community - and I credit Richard Burrow for so much of it."
Even the architect who is suing the foundation for nearly $1 million - and is angry at Burrow for failing to pay him fully-does not want to see him convicted of a crime.
"It all boils down to a very simple question: Do the ends justify the means?" says Byron R. Dickson. "If you ask the prosecutor, he'll say no. If you ask the veterans who lost limbs and buddies and who have long awaited some recognition, the answer is yes."
Funding falters
In the spring of last year, the buzz in this hamlet of 6,300 was that the president would attend the D-Day dedication. "There was such enthusiasm - everyone was caught up in it," Dickson says. "There was urgency beyond belief here."
But weeks before June 6, the foundation fell so far behind in payments that the memorial's chief contractor threatened to walk off the job.
Years earlier, the project had gotten off to a bright start, thanks to large, high-profile donations - from film director Steven Spielberg and "Peanuts" cartoonist Charles Schulz, among others - along with state and local money and the blessing of Congress.
By the spring of last year, though, costs had outpaced contributions, and a souring economy slowed donations.
After surprising his board with news of the foundation's debt, Burrow borrowed $1.2 million from the Bank of the James in Bedford.
To secure the loan, Burrow gave the bank a list of major donations that had been pledged - a document the federal prosecutor says was false.
The loan kept the contractor on the job. And the finishing touches, such as bronze statues of soldiers fighting their way across a beach, were installed just days before the dedication.
On a hot June day, Bush stood at the memorial, between a 44-foot triumphal arch of polished granite and an expansive plaza and pool symbolizing the beaches of Normandy, and delivered a stirring address.
The town was delirious with joy.
Days later, Burrow resigned, citing exhaustion. His deputy, William McIntosh, a retired Army colonel and former West Point professor who had served as a vice president for the memorial, took over as president.
McIntosh and Burrow had had lunch together nearly every day. They had traveled to Normandy together for the 55th D-Day anniversary in 1999. They had made trips to Washington together to seek federal money.
But McIntosh says he had no idea that the foundation was in such serious financial trouble.
"The only relationship that I had to money in the foundation was to do what I could from time to time to raise it," he says. "And I did raise quite a lot."
After he took over, McIntosh says, he discovered "within minutes" a substantial cash deficit.
McIntosh met with Virginia's senators, John W. Warner and George F. Allen, hoping for help from the federal government. They urged him to seek an outside investigation to try to explain the debt and to restore public confidence in the project.
Days later, McIntosh walked across Main Street to Bedford County's commonwealth's attorney and asked the state to examine the foundation's finances.
The unexplainable
"What I thought was, 'There are things here that, when I talk to people about our finances, I can't provide an adequate explanation for,'" McIntosh says, explaining why he went to the prosecutors. "And it's best I turn to someone who can help me get that kind of an explanation."
Asked whether he had expected the inquiry to result in criminal charges against his former boss, McIntosh says: "I did not know."
Commonwealth's Attorney Randy Krantz says that because of the national scope of the memorial, he turned the case over to federal prosecutors. It went to John L. Brownlee, who had just been appointed by Bush to be U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia.
Some say that McIntosh's decision to invite authorities to examine the books was a major mistake because, they argue, it cast the cloud of a federal investigation over the memorial - which crippled fund raising - when the debts could have been dealt with internally.
"It couldn't have been handled in a poorer way," says Stuart Barbour, a retired lawyer and former board member.
'Good faith, judgment'
But others say McIntosh's actions were prudent, ultimately shielding the memorial from a barrage of lawsuits, and necessary to assure donors that money was not used improperly.
"The National D-Day Memorial Foundation has demonstrated good faith and good judgment in requesting a thorough and public audit of its finances," The Roanoke Times said in an editorial in October.
At the same time, McIntosh took another contentious step, asking the board to step down en masse to make way for a more business-savvy board, better equipped to pull the memorial out of its financial hole.
The shake-up left some of those with powerful ties to the memorial - such as Slaughter and Lucille Boggess, who lost two brothers on D-Day - without any role in the project.
"All of us had hurt feelings," says Boggess, 73.
But Mayor Mike Shelton, another board member who stepped down, saw it differently.
"This was now a big business," he says. "You had to either have the contacts to bring in big money or give money yourself - or you get off."
Burrow indicted
The unhappiness caused by the board exodus intensified in June, when, after an FBI investigation, a grand jury returned an indictment against Burrow - to the shock of many.
"There's not a dishonest bone in the guy's body," Mayor Shelton says of Burrow.
Before joining the D-Day project in 1996, Burrow, a quiet, intense man with a penchant for softball and jogging, had devoted most of his career to the city of Roanoke, where he lives.
In announcing the indictment, Brownlee said that Burrow "at critical times, abandoned his fund-raising duties and obtained certain monies through fraud, deceit, and manipulation."
Burrow did so, the U.S. prosecutor said, to "enhance his reputation and prestige" as a fund-raiser and nonprofit organization leader.
Fraud accusations
Burrow is accused of falsely telling the Bank of the James that the foundation had more than $2 million in pledges in order to obtain a loan.
He is also accused of defrauding Virginia taxpayers by obtaining a temporary loan that he put in the foundation's bank account for a day in order to apply for matching state funds.
Through his lawyer, Burrow declined to be interviewed for this article.
But the lawyer, John Lichtenstein, says his client violated no laws and was merely a "scapegoat for an investigation" that should not have produced any charges.
"Nobody built a pool in their back yard," Lichtenstein says. Normally, he argues, federal fraud cases "are about someone stealing money. The investigation confirmed and proved that didn't happen."
Much of the community, too, supports Burrow, arguing that he is accused of a victimless crime: Neither Virginia taxpayers nor the Bank of the James has complained that money was ill-spent.
And his supporters say the immense pressure to finish the memorial on time should have weighed against prosecution.
Friends have formed a defense fund, raising nearly $100,000, and have even held a fund-raising cabaret show. Veterans, too, have been an ally, insisting that in his haste to finish the project, Burrow was responding to the stark reality that World War II veterans were dying off at a rate of 1,100 a day.
Breaking the law
But others contend that even the purest of intentions don't justify breaking the law.
"Maybe his heart was in the right place, but you still have to follow the law," says Daniel E. Karnes, a former board member and Vietnam veteran.
C. Patrick Hogeboom III, an assistant U.S. attorney who presented the case to the grand jury, says motive is a factor only in deciding a sentence, not in determining guilt or innocence.
Some familiar with the U.S. attorney's office say the assistant prosecutors and Brownlee - whose father is Army Undersecretary Les Brownlee, a highly decorated Vietnam veteran - felt some anxiety about proceeding with this case, not wanting to appear to be pursuing a man who simply wanted to build a war memorial.
McIntosh, for his part, says he has no regrets about going to the authorities.
He declines to say whether he thinks the indictment is justified, saying only that Burrow was a "valued and worthy colleague throughout our relationship and I hope I was to him, but it's not my place to have a feeling in any case."
For fund-raising purposes, he says, the investigation has helped distance the foundation and its current leadership from any charges of impropriety.
Cleared of taint
Since he took over as president, McIntosh and the board have reduced the foundation's debt. Now that the investigation has found the new leadership to be "free and clear of any taint," McIntosh says, he has again pressed Virginia's congressional delegation to seek federal money to bolster the memorial.
Closer to home, the county Board of Supervisors ultimately chose not to turn its back on the area's top tourist attraction.
It gave the memorial $25,000 for next year - less than the $100,000 it gave in each of the five years before but, in a tight budget year, more than a token.
And, at the antiques shops, the farmers' market and the Olde Liberty rail station that is now a restaurant, the town waits to see how the courts treat a man "who came here for one purpose," as Batten, the county's registrar of voters, says of Richard Burrow.
"He set about to accomplish a goal - and he did that," Batten adds.
"There's such pride in the community for this project. But it's bittersweet. It's mostly with sadness that this community views what's happened."