Last week when I was tooling around eastern Contra Costa County in search of signs of Persephone's return (the coming of spring), a flash of white on the hillside facing the Lafayette BART station caught my eye. So when I returned from my search for wildflowers on Mt. Diablo, I stopped by the station to get a better look.
What I had seen was the ad hoc war memorial that has been actively growing since the past November when area residents began planting crosses to mark the number of U.S. military killed in Iraq. There are now 3133 individual crosses on the hill, and it must be an overwhelming sight to those who commute to and from this station every day.
Some of the crosses bear names, presumably placed there by friends or family members. Many have small flags attached, and, when I was there, people wandered among the crosses placing flowers here and there.
A sign at the top of the hill gives a running count of the war dead.
And I noticed that in some cases, other religions' symbols were substituted for crosses. I saw star and crescents for the Muslims, six-pointed Stars of David that represent Jewish soldiers, and a Dharma wheel for a Buddhist. I didn't see any pentacles, but I have absolutely no doubt that if and when there is a Pagan killed in Iraq, her or his pentacle will be welcome, too. (Pentacles are permitted as a religious emblem on a service member's dog tag, but they are presently barred from tombstones in veterans' cemeteries). Here's a photo that shows some of the diverse symbols presently used in the Lafayette war memorial.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, organizers of the memorial add more crosses each week as the death toll continues to mount. People hold candlelight vigils at the memorial, or simply stop by to pay their respects. The memorial is visible from the heavily traveled freeway connecting Oakland to Walnut Creek. Last week the memorial was the site of competing pro and anti-war demonstrations.
At least one of the neighbors is vehemently opposed to the memorial. Her garden sprouts signs proclaiming that "crosses don't make art, children do" and "expose children to love, not death." Others claim that the memorial disrespects the war dead.
I found it very very hard to stand and photograph this memorial without weeping. The notion that so many of our young women and men are being sent off to a war very few of us ever wanted only to return in a wooden box, or gravely wounded is both heart-breaking and fury-making. I find myself thinking of these soldiers' parents. I lost a son in a mountaineering accident when he was 23, and there's not a day that goes by that his absence doesn't tear at me.
I remember coming home to California after burying David in Washington State. My grief at the death of my son was so raw, even though this gentle young man died, not in combat, but in an accident in the mountains that he loved so much. I picked up a newspaper at the Oakland airport and saw a woman bent prostrate over the flag-draped coffin of her son, who had been killed in the invasion of Panama in late 1989. I could not imagine the sorrow it must have brought that mother to have had her son killed in that "war." It must be just as bad for the parents of all the military killed in this present war.
Sunday March 18 is the 40th anniversary of the march to the Pentagon by those opposed to the war in Vietnam. I was living in Washington State at the time, and David was a tiny baby so I didn't get to the Pentagon. But I did bring him in my backpack baby carrier to many anti-war demonstrations, perhaps seeding the pacifism that kept him from registering for the draft when it was time.
Sunday is also the fourth anniversary of the big San Francisco march against the then-proposed invasion of Iraq. People will be marching again in San Francisco this coming Sunday in a demonstration aimed at moving people "from protest to resistance." I participated four years ago, but this time, my old crone knee is not up to the lengthy march from Justin Herman Plaza to the San Francisco Civic Center. But I hope the streets are filled with people and that somehow the commander-in-chief gets the message that enough is enough, and we don't want this terribly botched war to continue any longer. Or at least he should read David Margolick's piece in this month's "Vanity Fair" about the six generals who gave up their careers because of their opposition to the war.
war memorial veteran demonstration dead Lafayette California peace activism activist Pagan Paganism anti-war Iraq Vietnam generals military troops