Veterans reflect on war, peace
SANTA MONICA PIER — Every Sunday for the past two years, a group of veterans now fighting to end the bloodshed in the Middle East has erected a temporary memorial along the north beach with white crosses — each representing an American soldier that has fallen in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
In light of the recent turnover in the U.S. Congress, organizers of the peace group Arlington West of Santa Monica hope that today will mark the last Veterans Day in which they will have to plant more than 2,400 crosses in the sand.
“There needs to be some plan arrived between Congress and the president to get those soldiers out of there,” said Arlington West Co-Director Chuck Nixon on Friday.
Veterans groups are planning events throughout the city today to honor the men and women of the armed forces, both current and past.
AMVETS Post 2 of Culver City is plan-ning to host a picnic on the lawn at the Veterans Administration on the corner of Wilshire and San Vicente boulevards from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Santa Monica College English Professor Dr. Daniel Cano, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, is expected to speak.
“What’s more American than a taco, right?” joked Santa Monica resident Cpl. Frank Juarez, of AMVETS Post 2.
Volunteers of Arlington West, a local branch of national non-profit group Veterans for Peace, will be out early Saturday morning preparing the white cross memorial on the beach just north of the Santa Monica Pier. A procession of 40 coffins — the number of soldiers killed within the past two weeks — will start from the Arlington West memorial, head north up Ocean Avenue and pause for a wreath-laying and flag-raising ceremony at Palisades Park, honoring the five branches of the U.S. military. The silent procession will then continue up Wilshire Boulevard to Third Street Promenade, and back down Broadway to the beach. Nineteen coffins — the number of soldiers that died last week — will remain at the beach following the procession.
Both families and friends of fallen soldiers and veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are expected to speak. One speaker, Sgt. Marshall Thompson, is an army reservist who recently returned from Iraq and protested the war by walking across the state of Utah.
Veterans for Peace formed Arlington West in February 2004 to honor the soldiers that have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Families of deceased soldiers have come from across the country to leave pictures and memorabilia at the memorial.
Volunteers spend three hours every Sunday setting up the memorial comprised of coffins and crosses, beginning as early as 7 a.m. Over the past two years, Nixon has met a number of families and friends of soldiers who have died in Iraq.
Last year, a family came to the memorial following a wedding in which their son, a soldier, got married.
This year, the soldier’s brother and sister returned to the memorial and placed the name of the soldier on one of the white crosses.
“Here was this young boy who stood in front of us, and now his name is on a cross,” Nixon said.
THE MEANING OF VETERANS DAY Veterans Day was formerly known as Armistice Day, the day when the allied powers signed a cease-fire agreement that brought World War I to an end in 1918.
But the holiday has a different meaning to those who fought in war and witnessed the horrors that changed their lives forever.
“It means being together with veterans from all wars, even those who didn’t fight in war but had to prepare to defend the country,” said Juarez, a Marine who fought in Vietnam in 1968.
Juarez returned from Southeast Asia a different man.
“It changed my life significantly,” he said. “Forever.”
To many veterans, the holiday sparks a moment of remembrance of their times as soldiers, fighting the enemy, and knowing your life could be taken away at any moment.
“You think about your experience and those who didn’t come back,” said Ed Ellis, president of Veterans for Peace and co-director of Arlington West.
The holiday has developed a new meaning the past few years with America in midst of war in the Middle East.Veterans of former wars say the soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan will endure more pain than those who fought in Vietnam, Korea or World War II.
The reason? While Vietnam vets typically served one tour, soldiers today are serving multiple tours, Nixon said.
With the leadership change in Congress, and with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on the way out, there is a glimmer of hope this week that the war will wind down.
“These veterans that are coming back will need more care, emotionally and psychologically, than anyone has ever needed in World War II or Vietnam,” Nixon said.“Times were fairly safe in Vietnam. These guys [soldiers in Iraq] are driving down streets and are likely to get blown up anytime.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 11, 2006. Read the original PDF.