Crosses of Lafayette: Vigil Tonight

Photo by Karen Allen

Tonight at 5:00 PM in Lafayette, California there will be a candle light vigil at the hillside across from BART where the memorial of painted crosses honors the U.S. Troops killed in Iraq. At this moment, the sign is being updated to record the 3,000th death.

The Los Angeles Times confirmed the tragic milestone this afternoon at 12:04 PM PST.

The controversial memorial was begun the weekend of Veterans Day and the first sign read "In Memory of 2,839 U.S. Troops Killed in Iraq." The sign has been the subject of vandalism and a contentious town hall meeting.

On Christmas Day, the town awoke to find that red ribbons had mysteriously been placed on each of the more than 800 crosses.

The Crosses of Lafayette honor the fallen warriors but the not war.

Crosses of Lafayette: 3,000

The Los Angeles Times reports that the number of U.S. Troops killed in Iraq has reached the tragic 3,000 mark:

U.S. military deaths in Iraq reach 3,000
By Solomon Moore
Times Staff Writer

12:04 PM PST, December 31, 2006

BAGHDAD — As 2006 came to an end, the toll of U.S. troops in Iraq hit another grim milestone, 3,000 dead.

The most recently announced deaths were typical of the killings this year. The Pentagon announced that Spc. Dustin R. Donica, 22, of Spring, Texas, had been killed Thursday by small arms fire in Baghdad and that another, still unidentified, soldier died in a southeastern neighborhood of the city when a roadside bomb exploded near his patrol.

Overall, the rate of military fatalities has remained relentlessly steady since the 1,000th death was announced in September 2004. But roadside bombs -- what the military calls improvised explosive devices -- have become much more deadly, accounting for about half of the last thousand U.S. troop deaths, compared to 38% of the second thousand deaths.

The most dangerous part of Iraq for U.S. troops remains Anbar province in the western deserts, but deaths in Baghdad have increased sharply since this summer, when the military increased patrols there in hopes of dampening the sectarian civil war that has gripped the capital and surrounding areas.

At least 111 American troops have been killed in December, making it the deadliest month for U.S. forces since the battle for Fallouja in November 2004. Overall, at least 820 U.S. military personnel were killed in 2006.

The 3,000th death comes in the wake of the execution of deposed president Saddam Hussein, an event that military leaders believe will lead to more attacks against U.S. troops, at least in the short run.

The Crosses of Lafayette: Real Freedom

Today's Contra Costa Times has this thoughtful letter from Murray Bishop:

As a father whose son is an Army Ranger in his second Iraqi deployment, I'd like to add my point of view on the Lafayette cross controversy.

My son and I are on the opposite sides of the political issues involved with our invasion of Iraq. I consider it the worst foreign policy mistake in U.S. history; he sees it differently. However, let no one interpret my views as an attempt to undermine the support given to the soldier on the ground there.

Only another parent can appreciate the fear and anxiety you experience in having your child go to war where the possibility of their death is real.

However, it seems to me that those who wrap themselves in the American flag as true patriots of the American way of life are the first to attack the civil liberties that are the cornerstones of that way of life and to say that those who have a fundamental disagreement with government policy are less American. It's a shallow and flawed point of view.

Freedom can only be protected by those of us brave enough and concerned enough to exercise it. That's far more important than the size of a sign.

Murray Bishop

Martinez

As Sinclair Lewis famously said: "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."

Crosses of Lafayette: Writing Sorrow

The number of crosses in Lafayette's Memorial to the U.S. Troops killed in Iraq continues to grow. And increasingly individual crosses have more personal messages and tributes.

"Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth."
- William Shakespeare

Photo by John Eaton

Crosses of Lafayette: Christmas Morning

The Crosses of Lafayette project memorializing the U.S. troops killed in Iraq are seen on a misty, Christmas morning. The memorial was restored yesterday after the vandalism of last Tuesday night. And today each cross is adorned with a red ribbon. Thanks to all the volunteers who turned out to work on the project.

Photo by John Eaton

Photo by John Eaton

Photo by John Eaton

Crosses of Lafayette: The Day Before Christmas

Today, December 24, 2006 was another work day on the Crosses of Lafayette project. We added more crosses and painted a new sign to replace the sign vandalized on the night of Tuesday, December 19. Sadly the new sign reads: "IN MEMORY OF 2,965 U.S. TROOPS KILLED IN IRAQ." The actual toll is already up to at least 2,969.

Photo by John Eaton

Photo by John Eaton

Photo by John Eaton

Crosses of Lafayette: Vandals Tarred by their own Brush

Chronicle / Jakub Mosur

Christopher Heredia and Marisa Lagos filed this report in the San Francisco Chronicle about the vandalism to the crosses in Lafayette:

LAFAYETTE
Sign in controversial Iraq war memorial is vandalized overnight

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Nighttime vandals late Tuesday or early Wednesday defaced the sign accompanying crosses planted on a Lafayette hillside as a memorial to American soldiers slain in Iraq.

Police said it appeared the culprits used black tar to paint over the sign's message, which had read, "In Memory of 2,867 Troops Killed in Iraq."

The hillside memorial, on Deer Hill Road overlooking the Lafayette BART Station and Highway 24, sparked controversy soon after it was placed there in early November, with supporters arguing it honors the troops in Iraq while also underscoring the war's toll, and opponents saying it disrespects men and women in uniform.

Michael E. Kerr, a Bay Point handyman who helped build some of the crosses, was at the memorial Wednesday afternoon surveying the damage, picking up trash and making plans to replace the sign.

"It's pretty nasty," said Kerr, 57. "I don't know what makes them so upset. They don't want the public to know the number of soldiers who have died in this war."

The memorial features hundreds of white wooden crosses -- many of which have been adorned with U.S. flags, Stars of David, holiday wreaths and poinsettias -- though the sign has been a lightning rod for criticism and was vandalized once before, when a woman knocked it over.

The City Council is studying whether the sign's size violates city rules and should be removed. Last month, scores of citizens packed a council meeting and passionately debated the crosses during a 2 1/2-hour public hearing, with most supporting the memorial and a few opposing it.

"They ought to take it down," said Cathy Smith, a 49-year-old mail clerk from Lafayette, while waiting for a bus at the Lafayette BART Station Wednesday. "It doesn't look very good. It looks like a cemetery. People are getting tired of it. It's probably upsetting a lot of people."

Lafayette Police Chief Mike Fisher said a taxi driver called police Wednesday morning alerting them that the sign had again been vandalized.

Fisher said police officers' hands have been tied in both cases of vandalism because property owner Louise Clark has not officially reported them.

"We know who (the first vandal) is, but the property owners have never done anything to report it to us," he said. "We were documenting (the most recent vandalism), of course, today, but we're unlikely to find someone. ... Until the victims, the property owners, contact us, we don't have a victim. You need a victim to have a crime."

Councilman Brandt Andersson said he hopes police find out who defaced the sign so they can be punished. The legality of the sign's size aside, Andersson said he supports the message the memorial delivers.

"I sympathize with the people who put the memorial out," he said. "People ought to be thinking about these deaths more than most of us do day to day."

Kerr said, "Not much attention is being paid to the sacrifices being made by the soldiers in Iraq. Almost 3,000 have died. They all have families. Some 20,000 have been seriously wounded. You add all their families together, and you have millions of people in the United States who are directly affected by the war."

Whether the sign is allowed to stay is a matter that won't be decided until the new year, Andersson said.

For the record, the vandalized sign said: "IN MEMORY OF 2,937 U.S. TROOPS KILLED IN IRAQ."

Crosses of Lafayette: Vandals Strike in the Night

Photo by John Eaton

Last night vandals desecrated the memorial to the fallen heroes in Iraq on a hillside in Lafayette, California. The vandals used black paint to cover up the tribute on the sign which read: "IN MEMORY OF 2,937 U.S. TROOPS KILLED IN IRAQ."

Jeff Heaton developed the plan to build a memorial to the fallen U.S. troops in Iraq. The memorial of crosses is located on private property owned by John and Louise Clark near the BART station in Lafayette. The property is on a hillside and is clearly visible to commuters on BART and on Highway 24. Volunteer support for the project initially came from community peace advocates including the Mt. Diablo Peace and Justice Center and the Lamorinda Peace Group.

Volunteers built and painted 420 crosses leading up to Veterans Day. These crosses were erected on the hillside over the weekend of November 11. A sign large enough to be read from a distance was also erected. Initially, the sign read: "IN MEMORY OF 2,839 U.S. TROOPS KILLED IN IRAQ." The sign, in turn, became a lightning rod for controversy. On November 14, a photographer from the Contra Costa Times happened to snap a photo of Jean Bonodio, identified as a former Marine, knocking the sign down. The City of Lafayette agreed to discuss the issue of the sign at a regularly scheduled city council meeting on November 27. The meeting attracted enormous media attention and allowed citizens to express their opinions about the war, free speech, the memorial, patriotism, respect for the military and the size of the sign.

On November 30, Michelle Locke, an AP journalist specializing in free speech issues wrote a story that was picked up world wide. The goal of the memorial is eventually to have a cross for every soldier killed in Iraq. The volunteer force building, painting and erecting the crosses has grown steadily. Each Sunday more crosses are added.

And now something really ugly has happened. The crosses and the sign have meant different things to different viewers. Some see a memorial to the fallen heroes in Iraq. Others see an anti war mesaage that does not show proper respect to our troops. But what can we make of this kind of vandalism and its misguided perpetrators? And how will the community respond? I hope to see a renewed commitment to completing the memorial and to ending this tragic war.

Christmas Wish: Peace On Earth

Tom Bennett / Christian Science Monitor

Crosses of Lafayette: Two Letters

Here are two letters published by the Contra Costa Times concerning the Crosses of Lafayette. The first one posted on Monday, December 18 is by Bob Hanson who is is co-chair of the Mt. Diablo Peace and Justice Center:

I guess I'm the "Bob" that Jay Todesco lambastes in his letter to the editor. I did have something to do with the crosses of Lafayette.

No, I don't hate America. America has been good to me. But, I do hate it when our country illegally invades another country that has done nothing to us, based upon a pack of lies.

I also hate the fact that we spend more on weapons than all of the other countries of the world put together. I do hate it when we feel we can ignore the Geneva Conventions against torture and other world treaties.

I also hate it when we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a war that shouldn't have been fought, and I hate it when nearly 3,000 of our young men and women come home in boxes from a war that had nothing to do with 9/11 and is causing the rest of the world to hate us.

Some people believe "America, right or wrong." I also say "America, right or wrong," but if it's wrong, I will try to change it.

Bob Hanson
Walnut Creek

The letter above is responding to this letter from Jay Todesco published on December 13:

Jeff Heaton and his buddy Bob are having so much fun with their crosses. But make no mistake. This is no memorial for the dead. It is a premeditated backhanded slap in the face of the men, women and families of our military.

It is meant to degrade everything good that America and our military has accomplished in the last five years. I expect this socialist tripe from Bob and Jeff, but city planner Michael Cass should be ashamed and embarrassed for his part in it. And it appears many rules were bent or ignored.

Bob and Jeff are not really anti-war. They just use it as a platform from which they can stain America. If they were really anti-war we would have seen all their protests against the hundreds of wars brought on by communist countries, leftist dictators, and Islamic extremists all over the world. But we hear from Bob and Jeff only when the United States is asserting itself in its own defense or in the defense of freedom and democracy. When we are at war or when we have our soldiers in harm's way, we know Bob and Jeff will be rooting for the other side.

Jay Todesco
Concord

Cedar Waxwings

Photo by John Eaton

Once a year, a flock of Cedar Waxwings arrives at our house in Lafayette, California. They swoop back and forth between the Willow Tree and the berries that are their target. By the end of the day, most of the berries are gone and so are the Cedar Waxwings. This year they arrived on Sunday, December 17, 2006.

More photos at Flickr.

Crosses of Lafayette: 740 Crosses Now in Memorial

The Crosses of Lafayette memorial started with 400 crosses put up over Veterans Day Weeekend. Now there are 740 crosses as reported in today's Contra Costa Times.

Posted on Mon, Dec. 18, 2006
Hillside cross display expands in Lafayette

Volunteers have added 133 new crosses to the controversial hillside memorial, bringing the total to 780.

The memorial started with 400 crosses on Veterans Day.

The display, one of many around the nation addressing the toll of the Iraq War, has spurred communityide debate over what is an appropriate memorial to fallen troops and whether privately owned hillsides should be a canvas for someone's political views.

"It really affects you when you dig one of these things. It's sad when you know you're representing a life," Wachs said.

A sign on the hillside across from the BART station, right, says "In memory of 2,937 U.S. troops killed in Iraq."

Lafayette officials have focused on whether the size of the sign adheres to the law.

The 8-by-16-foot sign is about 30 times the size of what's allowed.

City officials will report back to the City Council on the matter at a yet-to-be-determined date.

Ellen Tauscher: CA-10 and Rumblings On the Left

Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake has picked up on post from Lafayette's own Jeremy L. Wolff of Acalanes High School:

I am 18 years old and a senior at Acalanes High School. I am the Youth Outreach Coordinator of the Lamorinda Democratic Club, President and Founder of the Acalanes Democratic Club, member of East Bay for Democracy and East Bay Young Democrats, and during the next several months will be working to create a Contra Costa County Young Democrats. Despite all this involvement, I have only seen Tauscher speak once. Maybe this is because, as a Congresswoman, Tauscher's in DC all the time (which I doubt is the reason because I've heard Miller speak 3 or 4 times) but I suspect that it is more because she does not like dealing with local clubs knowing that she will be put under the spotlight and actually asked tough questions.

snip

One person asked why the Democrat's didn't have a set, united platform. Tauscher responded that they did. After multiple people further questioned about what the platform was and why we didn't know about it, Tauscher expressed her disappointment that we (remember, we're a smart district) hadn't done our research and that if we simply went to her website we'd find her policies. Now, of course this answered no questions because we wanted to know about a united Democratic platform not one Congresswoman's platform. Finally one person got to the point and asked the right question. He wanted a united Democratic platform that was simple and easy for Americans to understand, one similar to the Republican's Contract with America which helped them win in 1994. Tauscher paused a moment and then asked the man if he was a professional activist or politician. The man smiled, shook his head, and responded that he was a doctor. Tauscher promptly replied that she doesn't plan on performing surgery just because she saw it on TV.

As you might assume, the meeting ended shortly after that and Tauscher did not stick around to shake hands. After that meeting I swore I would never vote for Tauscher. It didn't matter that she had well thought out answers to the topics of Iraq, Iran, and Nuclear Bunker Busters or that her record on social issues is quite decent. I wasn't even taking into account her terribly pro-corporate stance on economics. I could not and still cannot vote for Tauscher because she does not believe that we the people should run our government. Her belief that government is for professional activists and politicians undermines all that netroots, grassroots, and the Democratic Party should stand for.

Seems that Ellen Tauscher is beginning to encounter some opposition. Also check out Daily Kos and Calitics. And here is Jeremy's original post. Way to go Jeremy!

Bush's Middle East Strategy: Whacking The Hornets' Nest

Back in April of 2003 shortly after the invasion of Iraq, I emailed a link to Josh Marshall's article Practice to Deceive from the Washington Monthly to my friend, Barb Wille. Over the weekend she sent it back and it holds up pretty well.

The central thesis is that chaos in the Middle East is the plan of Bush's neocon advisors. And, chaos, in turn, was expected to lead to a reverse domino effect wherein "democratic governments - or, failing that, U.S. troops - rule the entire Middle East."

Of course, if creating chaos is your plan, it is important to stifle any debate about the real reason for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Consequently, the Bush administration successfully kept the debate centered on "The War On Terror" and the bogus "weapons of mass destruction" scare tactics. Within the administration, there does not seem to have been much debate about the real likelihood of such a reverse domino effect or the costs associated with it.

Many historians and foreign policy experts could have pointed out some obvious flaws in the neocon thinking. First, of course, is the fact that no domino effect happened after the fall of Saigon. Second is that countries and peoples do not like to be occupied by foreign armies. Third, as the Soviets discovered to their dismay in Afghanistan, there are fighters who know the land and bow to no one.

So back in 2003, Josh cited two interesting metaphors. One was used by Jefferson to describe slavery in America: “We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.” I love that quotation, but the better metaphor is the one Marshall ends with:

Ending Saddam Hussein's regime and replacing it with something stable and democratic was always going to be a difficult task, even with the most able leadership and the broadest coalition. But doing it as the Bush administration now intends is something like going outside and giving a few good whacks to a hornets' nest because you want to get them out in the open and have it out with them once and for all. Ridding the world of Islamic terrorism by rooting out its ultimate sources--Muslim fundamentalism and the Arab world's endemic despotism, corruption, and poverty--might work. But the costs will be immense. Whether the danger is sufficient and the costs worth incurring would make for an interesting public debate. The problem is that once it's just us and the hornets, we really won't have any choice.

And so it is that George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and the other neocons have whacked the hornets' nest. And now it is up to new leaders to try to reestablish order.

Crosses of Lafayette: Volunteers in Action

Placing more crosses on the hill in Lafayette under the oak tree on December 10, 2006. The sign now reads "IN MEMORY OF 2,920 U.S. TROOPS KILLED IN IRAQ."

Photo by John Eaton

Loading up the car with crosses to add to the hillside memorial in Lafayette.
Photo by John Eaton

Despite the rain, one party of 15 volunteers builds and paints 42 more crosses using recycled lumber and recycled paint on Saturday December 9, 2006.
Photo by John Eaton

The Crosses of Lafayette: A Father Speaks

In today's Contra Costa Times Lewis Disbrow airs his perspective on the Crosses of Lafayette:

I SAW HER on last week's KTVU Monday morning news spot. You know, the one about the white crosses in Lafayette. There in that segment, she, "the mother of a soldier," insisted that the field of crosses was "just not appropriate."

I thought about that for the rest of the week -- a lot. I thought beyond the freedom of speech issue (as significant as that is) and considered what it would feel like to be the mother of a U.S. soldier in today's unsettled world. Then I thought about what it would feel like to be the mother of a soldier from any nation and at any time in history. I supposed what might be a mother's greatest fear -- the fear that her daughter or son might not come home alive. I even imagined what must be a mother's even greater horror -- learning that her fear was justified.

Yes, I thought a lot about it. I really did. And I do not think I failed to grasp the significance of being a mother -- a parent, at least -- of a soldier in time of war. I think I understand both the immediate and the potential costs of sending one's child into battle. And it really makes no difference whether that daughter or son serves as enlisted personnel, noncommissioned officer or commissioned officer; the potential cost is incalculable, the potential sacrifice ultimate -- to soldier, parents, family, friends and nation alike.

And then I thought about those white crosses on that Lafayette hillside again -- and about our need to remember, our need to make visible and tangible the memory of those we can no longer see, no longer touch. This need moves us to erect the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, to inscribe the names of those killed or missing in action on the cold, black granite of the Wall. It seems only human, only right to honor our dead, to commemorate our losses -- and to do so as each sees fit. And while I pray that every member of our military forces returns home healthy and strong, I must admit to a special and perhaps understandable concern in my heart for the son of this "mother of a soldier." You see, her son, a member of West Point's Graduating Class of 2007, is my only son as well. But should he die on foreign soil or somehow in the line of his chosen duty, I would -- through the bitterest of parental tears -- wish to see one more white cross set on that Lafayette hillside. It would be appropriate.

Disbrow is a Martinez resident with a son at West Point in New York.

Lisa Disbrow has been in the news with a different point of view.

Iraq War: U.S. Fatalities City Map

Click to enlarge

The Crosses of Lafayette: Individualizing Death

Katherine Tam of the Contra Costa Times looks at the Crosses of Lafayette in the context of other memorials and protests that "individualize" death:

Hundreds of white crosses in memory of fallen troops line beaches and fields in at least a dozen cities across the country, including the Bay Area. A traveling exhibit uses combat boots to convey the death toll in Iraq.

Items and images that trigger thoughts of fallen soldiers and the Iraq war have ignited an emotional response around the country, not just in Lafayette, where white crosses blanket a hillside.

"The individualization of death -- having boots or a cross for each person -- is a bit like re-enacting the burial in some way, but done in a public setting," said Michael McConnell, who spearheaded the exhibit of combat boots in Chicago.

"It individualizes it enough so nobody becomes a statistic, so death remains a tragedy," he said. "(Such displays make) so much more of a difference emotionally for people."

I certainly agree with Katherine about igniting "an emotional response" but I do not understand the underlying causes of each emotion. For instance, I understand why the crosses in Lafayette or the crosses and the signs together make people uncomfortable. After all, at least in part, that is the point. But what about the anger?

At the Lafayette Town Hall meeting we witnessed real anger and hostility from some of those who oppose the crosses or the sign or both. Interestingly, the two parents (Nadia McCaffrey and Patrick Sheehan) of soldiers killed in Iraq spoke in favor of keeping the crosses and sign. They were not angry and they felt no need to attack those who did not agree with them.

I interpret the anger on the part of the mothers with boys in the Marines as fear masquerading as anger. I understand.

In some cases the anger may stem from being proved wrong about earlier support for the war. Okay.

But what about rage toward those who support the crosses? Afterall, Nadia McCaffrey feels double crossed by the U.S. government that went to war on false pretenses, failed to plan for the peace and failed to provide the right protection for the troops who were fighting or the right care for the wounded returning.

Crosses of Lafayette: Moon Rising

Photo by John Eaton

The Crosses of Lafayette: Work Day

Photo by John Eaton

Photo by John Eaton

Photo by John Eaton

John Eaton

The Crosses of Lafayette: New York Times

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Today's Sunday New York Times has a feature article about the Crosses of Lafayette:

The New York Times

December 3, 2006
Homemade Memorial Is Stirring Passions on Iraq
By JESSE McKINLEY

LAFAYETTE, Calif., Nov. 30 — The tranquil suburb of Lafayette hardly seems the most likely place in the Bay Area for a battle over the First Amendment and the war in Iraq. Liberal Berkeley is just over the hill, after all, and nearby San Francisco is always spoiling for a fight.

But over the last few weeks, it is Lafayette — an affluent bedroom community 20 miles east of downtown San Francisco — that has become the scene of a passionate debate over the place of political speech in suburbia.

At issue is a hillside memorial, made up of some 450 small white crosses and a 5-by-16-foot sign that reads: “In Memory of 2,867 U.S. Troops Killed in Iraq.” The memorial was created by Jeff Heaton, a building contractor and antiwar activist, who said it was meant “to get people involved on a local level” and talking about Iraq.

Sure enough, people here have become involved, including more than 200 people and a half-dozen television news crews and reporters who crammed into the usually sparsely attended City Council meeting last week to voice their opinions about the memorial. And while many there said they found the crosses deeply moving, others called the memorial unpatriotic, disrespectful or just plain ugly.

That camp included Jean Bonadio, a former Marine sergeant who said she was so offended that she stopped her car and climbed the hill to dismantle the sign, which sits with the crosses on private property of a fellow advocate just north of Highway 24, a major Bay Area thoroughfare, and the Lafayette light-rail station.

“My first reaction was, ‘What a disgrace to those who have sacrificed,’ ” said Ms. Bonadio, 53, a dog trainer. “I had no tools with me, so I removed it with my bare hands and feet.”

The sign was repaired, but Ms. Bonadio is not the only one trying to take down the sign. Shortly after the memorial was erected, the city government called on Mr. Heaton to remove the accompanying sign, citing a municipal code forbidding anything larger than four square feet to be posted on private property.

That, however, prompted some supporters of the memorial to suggest that the city was engaging in censorship, accusations Mayor Ivor Samson denied. “The content of the sign is not an issue,” Mr. Samson said. “If the sign was that size and said ‘I love my mom,’ it would still be in violation.”

Mr. Samson also said that the memorial had drawn attention here precisely because Lafayette, where the median cost of a home is over $1 million, was traditionally apolitical. “I think had this been in Berkeley or Santa Cruz, a community with a greater history of political activism, this wouldn’t be news,” he said.

No action was taken at Monday’s meeting, after the city’s attorney said he needed more time to study the issue. But Louise Clark, who owns the property the memorial sits on, said that if the sign had to go, the meaning would be lost.

“If it’s just crosses, it’s a cemetery,” said Ms. Clark, 81. “It’s not a cemetery, nobody is buried there. It’s a memorial.”

But some Lafayette residents question whether the memorial actually meant to remember the dead troops. “There’s no American flag flying, it’s just very stark and shock value,” said Lyn Zusman, 53, whose son is a marine just back from Iraq. “If you want to make it a memorial, you personalize it. But if it’s a protest, call it that. That’s why we live in America, so we can spout our views off.”

This is not the first time Mr. Heaton, a longtime Lafayette resident, has tried to erect a memorial in his hometown. Three years ago, he tried to mount a smaller display of crosses on the same hillside. The night after he planted them, however, someone stole them. The next day, he planted the crosses again, and the next night, they disappeared again.

But this time, Mr. Heaton says he feels that the mood about the war has shifted, both nationwide and in Lafayette.

“There’s been a real change in the tide of feeling about the war,” said Mr. Heaton, 53, who said the inspiration for the crosses came from a visit to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. “It is much more acceptable now to question the reasons for the war.”

He added that Lafayette would be a good place to make a statement because “it is pretty sleepy and conservative and not that much happens there.”

City officials in Lafayette also say their city has been slowly changing, with an influx of former Berkeley and San Francisco residents looking for a place with good public schools for their children. Lafayette, Mr. Samson said, now has “people who are very interested in the larger world.”

The Lafayette crosses are not the only grass-roots remembrance around, or the only one to stir controversy. Veterans for Peace, a nonprofit antiwar group based in St. Louis, has regularly planted similar arrays of crosses on beaches in Santa Monica and Santa Barbara. Since 2004, the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group based in Philadelphia, has sponsored a traveling exhibit called Eyes Wide Open, which features a pair of empty boots for every American solider killed in Iraq.

Michael T. McPhearson, executive director of Veterans for Peace, which also has fields of crosses planted in four other cities, admitted that the displays sometimes provoked angry reactions. “They say we’re not supporting the troops, and they say we shouldn’t be doing these vigils,” said Mr. McPhearson, 42, who served in the first gulf war. “But we feel that especially because we’re veterans and we’ve served, we have the right.”

Mr. Samson said he did not know when the city attorney would rule on whether the sign in Lafayette had to go. In the meantime, however, Mr. Heaton and Ms. Clark say they will continue to add crosses — and update the numbers on the sign.

“It’s overwhelming just looking at that small number, and that’s nowhere near the number of the ones we lost,” said Ms. Clark, speaking of the dead in Iraq. “When we get all those crosses up there, everybody will gasp.”

Crosses of Lafayette and Mount Diablo

Photo by John Eaton

Crosses of Lafayette: Sgt. Patrick R. McCaffrey, Sr.

Michael Moore has a post by Nadia McCaffrey who spoke out at the Lafayette Town Hall meeting held Monday, November 27. Her son, Patrick R. McCaffrey was killed in Iraq in 2004 and she gave a touching speech in favor of keeping the crosses and the sign:

Growing up in the province of Auvergne into the heart of Lafayette’s country, approximately fifty miles from the Marquis de Lafayette’s castle, I never thought then, that I would become a “French-American Gold Star Mother.”

Since my son’s was murdered by the Iraqi soldiers and officers he was training, I have become a passionate advocate -- some forty years after leaving my country of birth -- defending freedom of speech, working for Peace and Justice and human rights. I have become an activist.

I live in Tracy, California (population 80,000) and I am the only out-spoken Gold Star parent against the Iraq war. The city has lost 6 soldiers since the beginning of this illegal conflict. Four days ago, I received a phone call from Robert Manning, a veteran and a friend, saying that we needed to be at a meeting to be held at town hall in Lafayette on Monday, November 27 at 7:00pm. Robert Manning also mentioned that I had to get in touch with Mr. and Mrs. Clark, they own the land where the memorial is now standing... but not yet completed.


The memorial is set up on a hill-side looking out at the freeway. It is a busy part of Lafayette and the project is sort of awakening the sleepy little town, giving it a twist of reality. A large board telling the daily number of our war-dead is surrounded by a multitude of white crosses, a modest memorial to honor our soldiers. The memorial was created by Jeff Heaton, a life-long resident of Lafayette, eager to show and remind to everyone of our children dying in Iraq for unknown reasons.

I was asked by the Clarks to support the Memorial’s endangered existence. Before joining Louise Clark, 81 years old, and her husband, 85 years old, for dinner at their home, I read and talked to people about it and decided to act immediately. I was not about to let them face such controversy alone.

I contacted some of the television news-stations, radios and newspapers to join the 7:00pm meeting. I also called people I know in the San Francisco area including a friend and a Gold Star dad, Patrick Sheehan, who does not live too far from Lafayette.

They all came, people came from everywhere. The nation, on Monday night was focused on the city of Lafayette to the surprise of its residents. Many people spoke on Monday night, military families mostly against the project, calling the memorial a sham, objections came on the ground that "it’s making some people uncomfortable", "it’s a constant reminder of the war"...

A while back, the city asked Mr. and Mrs. Clark to take the sign down. Neither the Clarks nor Jeff Heaton are willing to do that. It supposedly is too large according to the city ordinance... true, but there are several other outstanding signs on the same road... no one seems to object to that!

So, there are some solutions of course. The site is comprised of two lots. Therefore two signs can stand next to each other, other options are being considered. The city of Lafayette also asked them to pay a fee of $4,000. The reason for it is unclear. This has now apparently changed; no decisions have been made yet. I have committed myself to the project, and will help with it the best way that I can. Jeff needs as many volunteers as possible to keep up with the orderly maintenance, and allow the project to grow, so the city can be proud of it.

Getting involved is one way to raise awareness within the community.

In Peaceful Service,
Nadia McCaffrey

Crosses of Lafayette: The Real Outrage

I have mentioned before that we have a bumper sticker on our car that says "HONOR THE WARRIOR NOT THE WAR." In Lafayette, the impetus behind the project to build the crosses on the hillside that are visable to riders on BART and drivers on Highway 24 is do exactly that. It is possible to honor the soldiers who have died in the war without honoring war itself or the perpetrators of the "war of choice" in Iraq.

In the current issue of The New York Review of Books, Mark Danner has written a chilling critique of the deeply irresponsible behavior of George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Condi Rice.

In a nutshell, after 9/11, Bush was able to appear to be so decisive precisely because he did not concern himself with details, complexities, dissenting opinions or the possibility of Plan A not working. Rumsfeld believed in Plan A: victory (toppling Sadaam) would be swift, U.S. troops would be welcome, Ahmad Chalabi would become the head of the new government, and "by the end of August we're going to have 25,000 to 30,000 troops left in Iraq." He had no plan B.

But Bush himself vetoed Chalabi:

So there would be no President Chalabi. Unfortunately, the President, who thought of himself, Woodward says, "as the calcium in the backbone" of the US government, having banned Chalabi's ascension, neither offered an alternative plan nor forced the government he led to agree on one. Nor did Secretary Rumsfeld, who knew only that he wanted a quick victory and a quick departure. To underline the point, soon after the US invasion the secretary sent his special assistant, Larry DiRita, to the Kuwait City Hilton to brief the tiny, miserable, understaffed, and underfunded team led by the retired General Garner which was preparing to fly to a chaotic Baghdad to "take control of the transition." Here is DiRita's "Hilton Speech" as quoted to Woodward by an army colonel, Paul Hughes:

"We went into the Balkans and Bosnia and Kosovo and we're still in them.... We're probably going to wind up in Afghanistan for a long time because the Department of State can't do its job right. Because they keep screwing things up, the Department of Defense winds up being stuck at these places. We're not going to let this happen in Iraq."

The reaction was generally, Whoa! Does this guy even realize that half the people in the room are from the State Department?

DiRita went on, as Hughes recalled: "By the end of August we're going to have 25,000 to 30,000 troops left in Iraq."

DiRita spoke these words as, a few hundred miles away, Baghdad and the other major cities of Iraq were taken up in a thoroughgoing riot of looting and pillage—of government ministries, universities and hospitals, power stations and factories—that would virtually destroy the country's infrastructure, and with it much of the respect Iraqis might have had for American competence. The uncontrolled violence engulfed Iraq's capital and major cities for weeks as American troops—140,000 or more—mainly sat on their tanks, looking on. If attaining true political authority depends on securing a monopoly on legitimate violence, then the Americans would never achieve it in Iraq. There were precious few troops to impose order, and hardly any military police. No one gave the order to arrest or shoot looters or otherwise take control of the streets. Official Pentagon intentions at this time seem to have been precisely what the secretary of defense's special assistant said they were: to have all but 25,000 or so of those troops out of Iraq in five months or less.

How then to secure the country, which was already in a state of escalating chaos? Most of the ministries had been looted and burned and what government there was consisted of the handful of Iraqi officials who Garner's small team had managed to coax into returning to work. In keeping with the general approach of quick victory, quick departure, Garner had briefed the President and his advisers before leaving Washington, emphasizing his plan to dismiss only the most senior and personally culpable Baathists from the government and also to make use of the Iraqi army to rebuild and, eventually, keep order.

But then Rumsfeld replaced Garner with Jerry Bremer. Bremer's first move was to dismiss all Baathists from government and his second move was to dismiss the Iraqi army. Bremer got his marching orders from Neocon Dougie Feith. Immediately the US "had at least 350,000 more enemies than it had the day before—the 50,000 Baathists [and] the 300,000 officially unemployed soldiers."

Iraq quickly spiraled out of control.

And who paid the price? The soldiers killed in Iraq. The Crosses in Lafayette honor these warriors but not the war and certainly not the pitiful architects of the failed war.