SANTA BARBARA A mother persuaded organizers of an anti-war memorial to remove her son's name from a weekly beach display of crosses representing U.S. troops killed in Iraq. Debbie Argel Bastian said she didn't believe the cross was a tribute and considered it an insult to her son, 28-year-old Air Force Capt. Derek Argel, who was killed Memorial Day in a plane crash. The cross with his name was among more than 1,800 erected in the sand each weekend here in a memorial dubbed Arlington West. "Their Web page says 'Wage Peace," said Bastian, of Lompoc. "I think they're trying to convey victims of war. Derek is not a victim of this war. He is a grown man, well-trained. He knew what he was doing. He would not want his name associated with an anti-war movement.'
| "So piss off! He didn't like you when he was alive, what makes you think he's gonna like you when he's dead?" |
Memorial organizers Santa Barbara Veterans for Peace initially resisted requests from Bastian and Argel's widow Wendy that they remove the name of the special tactics officer. They relented this week after hearing from Bastian, but urged her to visit the display and reconsider. 'My sympathies are with the families who have lost their loved ones,' said Lane Anderson, a Vietnam War veteran. "But my efforts at Arlington West are focused as well on the men and women who did not get invited to the funeral or memorial, who need to touch the name of their comrade.'
| Why? Where does this need to "touch the name of their comrade" come from? How many real, live, genuine Iraqi Freedom vets do you get visiting your California beach? Or are you in fact merely nailing sticks together and decorating them with the names of war dead to massage your own ego and lend yourself a transient sense of importance? |
Anderson said the actual white cross will remain in place, but will be unmarked. A note will be affixed saying the name was removed at the family's request. Bastian also asked that her son's name be taken off a cross in a similar memorial outside Crawford, Texas where another mother, Cindy Sheehan of Vacaville, had been staging an anti-war protest in memory of her son Casey, killed in Iraq last year. |