One last question? when serving static resources using the src/webapp directory, is it possible to change the target directory to NOT be 'static'. I had done that before (possibly why my above issue w/ the OOM?) Or am I stuck with 'static' in the URI?

Serving content from another directory than

/static

should be possible by registering a custom resource handler: https://docs.spring.io/spring-framework/docs/current/javadoc-api/org/springframework/web/servlet/config/annotation/ResourceHandlerRegistry.html.