Arlington West is located in Santa Barbara California at a place known as Stearns wharf. As the name would imply it is supposed to remind passersby of the thousands and thousands of perfectly alinged crosses of Arlington National cemetary, at first glance, it does. I see this site every Sunday during my run along the beach at my lunch hour, I work just a quarter mile from the beach at the train station. But what really happens here is a Sunday rally of Santa Barbara peace activist and anti-Bush groups.
The site, I am told, was created when the death toll from Iraq was around four hundred. Today when erected every Sunday it has closer to three-thousand small wooden crosses, one for every American soldier killed in Iraq. The site was created by a group of Veterans called " Veterans for Peace " it was probably well intended as a memorial but has become a place to, in my personal opinion, dishonor the sacrafice of the fallen.
Last Mothers day there was the usual rally at the site and I stopped to listen to all the burnt out activist from the sixtys talk about how horrible and pointless "War" is and that together the Mothers of America could put an end to "War". I looked around and saw so many people wringing their hands and, with closed eyes, knodding in agreement. I wondered if these socially elite people even know the number and names of the women that have died for the rights of other women in Iraq, probably not. There was never any mention of these women or their children, only self rightous rehteric and dellusions of world peace.
As I looked around at these folks I heard one of the speakers mention the fact that American women had only been allowed to vote for less than one hundred years, there was no mention of the Iraqi women voting for the first time in histry, I wonder if it just slipped their mind ?
I had to supress the urge to scream out " How many of these crosses have the names of women on them ? And just how many were mothers when they gave their lives for the women of Iraq ?."
And did any of these people know the story of the real "Arlington" ? What is Arlington if not a symbol of the price our country has paid for the liberties these people so freely exercise prior to their evening glass of "Merlot" and ridicule of those that serve ?
it really was difficult to hold my tongue and not challenge the speakers, but it really wouldn't have accomplished anything I believed to be positive. These folks are quite comortable sitting on the beach in Santa Barbara admiring art, creative speech, wine tasting, peace rallies and never acknowledging the price paid for such liberties.
