A MISTAKEN CONCEPT OF HONORING OUR LOCAL VETERANS

By Juan Montoya
I don't know who Rose Cavazos is or whether she is a veteran or had family members who may have served in the military. If they are, or were, we thank them for their service here.
I read her letter to the local daily with interest. She speaks respectfully of the men and women who served in the U.S. Armed Forces and who have been honored by the naming of Veterans Park on Central Boulevard.
Everything is fine until she uses the bully pulpit of the newspaper's columns to decry the use of the facility by the public for "soccer, barbecues and other such activities."
She then goes overboard and states that the park "was not built to have people run all over the etched names of the veterans."
In the first place – unless you are Spiderman – it is next to impossible to "run all over the etched names" of the veterans who are listed there because the names are listed on a granite slab on a wall. They are not on the ground. You'd almost have to take a running start to "run" on their etched names.
On the other hand, those veterans who are no longer with us – and I have a few friends listed on those walls – would be tickled pink to know that their fellow citizens are enjoying the liberties that they sacrificed and served for on a patch of land dedicated to their memory.
That reminded me about an incident that happened a few years ago during the Iraq war when I was visiting with friends in a southwest Minnesota rural community.
It was the Fourth of July and with everything closed, my friend and I walked over to the local Veterans of Foreign Wars hall to shoot the bull with the local vets and quaff a few.
The vets were friendly enough and we were getting along just fine when the bartender in the well remarked loudly that his sister had joined a group that left on a bus to Minneapolis-St. Paul to protest George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq.
Although he wasn't himself a veteran, he thought he would ingratiate himself with the customers who were by criticizing his sister and those in the protest group as being unpatriotic.
"It's a shame," he said, "that those bums are out there screaming on the street while our troops are in Iraq," he said plaintively. "I told her I didn't agree with what she was doing."
As he looked around for what he though would be unanimous agreement, a vet spoke up from the far end of the bar well.
"Good for her," said the vet who I later learned had served in combat in Korea and then Vietnam. "A lot of people went to war and fought and died so that your sister can enjoy the freedoms guaranteed to all Americans. We went to fight overseas so that your sister could exercise her right to protest. We don't have to agree with her."
This, I feel, is the mature eyes-wide-open patriotism that we have to exercise as a nation to honor the service of these men and women. The rights we enjoy can be summed up in the First Amendment.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
But there is also a mirror image to these rights. One could very well read that an individual is not only free to speak, but also not to speak or to worship or not worship as he or she sees fit; to exercise his right to assemble, or not; and to pledge loyalty, or not, to the government short of trying to overthrow it.

The case involving children of Jehovah's Witnesses not pledging allegiance to the flag is but one example of the Constitution protecting differing viewpoints.
In that case, children of this sect were being forced to pledge allegiance to the flag when their religion taught them that "thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth."

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the children and declared that they, or anyone, should not to be forced to pledge allegiance to anything.
Veterans who saw combat are the first ones to say they are against wars and the last to glorify them.
They don't want their children or grandchildren to go through what they went through. By the same token, those who gave their all would probably feel good that the patch of land dedicated to their memory is being used by their fellow citizens to fully exercise the freedoms their blood and service guaranteed them. It is not, after all, a mausoleum, but a place where families can enjoy themselves and remember these heroes.
For them to know that children play there, or that their daddy grills a hot dog or hamburger for them to eat on the Fourth of July - Independence Day - while the bigger kids play a game of soccer in the grass would probably make them yearn to be home among them.
We respect their memory with the park, and we respect their service by enjoying the freedoms they guaranteed the rest of us. That, Ms. Cavazos, is the real testament to the lasting value of their service.