A Singular Control Approach to Highly Damped Second-Order Abstract Equations and Applications footnote{This research was made possible by NATO Collaborative Research Grant SA.5-2-05 (CRG.940161) 274/94/JARC-501, whose support is gratefully acknowledged. The research of I. Lasiecka and R. Triggiani was supported also by the National Science Foundation under Grant NSF-DMS-92-04338. The research of L. Pandolfi was written with the programs of GNAFA-CNR. The main results of the present paper were announced in [LPT]}.