The location is known as "Sunrise Rock" in the Mojave National Preserve in San Bernardino County in southeastern California.

[1] Currently, there is a cross atop Sunrise Rock that is between 5 and 8 feet (1.5 and 2.4 m) tall and is constructed out of 4-inch-diameter (100 mm) metal pipes painted white.

In 1999, NPS received a request from an individual seeking to build a stupa (a dome-shaped Buddhist shrine) on a rock outcropping at a trailhead located near the cross.

NPS determined that neither the cross nor the property on which it is situated qualifies for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places.

[4] In July 2002, the court entered a permanent injunction ordering that the “Defendants, their employees, agents, and those in active concert with Defendants, are hereby permanently restrained and enjoined from permitting display of the Latin cross in the area of Sunrise Rock in the Mojave National Preserve.” In January 2002, while this matter was pending in district court, Congress passed a defense appropriations bill, which included a section designating the Sunrise Rock cross as a “national memorial.”[5] In October 2002, less than three months after the district court's injunction, in legislation aimed at the Sunrise Rock cross, Congress passed a defense appropriations bill that included a provision barring the use of federal funds “to dismantle national memorials commemorating United States participation in World War I.”[6] In September 2003 Congress enacted another defense appropriations bill that included a land exchange agreement regarding the Sunrise Rock cross in which an acre of land containing the cross was conveyed to the Veterans Home of California— Barstow, Veterans of Foreign Wars Post #385E in consideration for 5 acres (2.0 ha) of land.

[8] Despite the injunction against display of the cross in the Preserve, the government began moving forward with the mechanics of the land exchange under § 8121.

Buono moved to enforce the district court's prior injunction, or modify it to prohibit the land exchange as a violation of the Establishment Clause.

[1] Writing for the plurality of the court, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, "The goal of avoiding governmental endorsement [of religion] does not require eradication of all religious symbols in the public realm".

"This was a legal fight that a vandal just made personal to 50 million veterans, military personnel and their families," National Commander Thomas J. Tradewell said.