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# Don’t forget Arlington West’s origins
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/dont-forget-arlington-wests-origins-editor/
- Published: 2007-06-16T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-25T00:16:02.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By James Zeruk, Jr. United States Air Force*

Of all the letters to the editor in recent weeks concerning Arlington West, I have to say the most touching was from Susan J. Hartley (“Arlington West helps homefront,” June 14). I don’t dispute her witness, in fact, I’ve had my own tearful moments with families and friends of the fallen while visiting.

Here are some things she didn’t tell you: For most of their first year, the Veterans For Peace included only our fallen and wounded (in names listed and crosses displayed) from Iraq... not Afghanistan. I was there almost every weekend in those early days and could never get a good answer from any of their people as to why this was so. When I suggested displaying even one cross marked “Afghanistan” to represent our casualties there, a “V for P” volunteer said, “We just want to keep it simple.”

They do now include the killed and wounded in Afghanistan, but if it is a true memorial to America’s fallen in the war on terror, as Ms. Hartley and the V for P want you to think, why did it take so long to do this?

Also seen at this “memorial” is a disturbing photo from a newspaper showing an Iraqi child in terrible distress. In fact, she is horrified. At what? Well, I’m not sure, but the photographer made sure that an American soldier was walking by her. It becomes obvious that the display of this picture is to hint that our troops are taking part in a villainous war; that we are the bad guys, horrifying children and targeting innocence. It was not long after the photo was in national newspapers that Sen. John Kerry made public statements suggesting our troops terrorize Iraqi women and children in the dead of night — kicking in their doors, invading their homes, etc.

I disagree with much about V for P, but this photo’s display makes me sick. When I recently questioned its inclusion in a display by a group claiming to honor our troops, I was given a story harder to follow than a Salvador Dali avant-garde film.

While the message and mission of Arlington West seems to have softened as its notoriety has increased, let’s not overlook the truth — whatever it may be conceived as today — this display started as a protest of the Iraq war and President Bush. Period.

But the crosses are here to stay, so I accept them as part of our landscape, and while Ms. Hartley and the Veterans for Peace can sing any song they want about Arlington West, I remember the first chords strummed and those notes are way out of tune with the composition they, today, title “memorial.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 16, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/061607.pdf?ref=smdp.com)