As usual, Al Fonzi’s column on Jan. 30 (“Vets are angry“) spews bitterness and anger at just about everyone. His latest rant is against a 2007 vote by then-Atascadero City Councilmember Ellen Beraud where she wanted to spend money to actually help our veterans get housing, jobs, and other services they really needed, when others wanted to spend it on a pricey war memorial. Personally, if I was a veteran in need of help, I’d rather have an apartment, a job, and counseling over an expensive monument.
Fonzi rattles on about WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq—in which our veterans served honorably and with great distinction, with tremendous losses. But his misdirected anger should be pointed at our Cadet Bone Spurs president (and his friends), who sends our troops to war while getting a bogus deferral for “bone spurs” from a family doctor, and then played varsity tennis for four years while bravely bearing the pain of foot “bone spurs.”
Everyone, listen up: This is a perfect example of angry guys living in the past, trying to force their bitter life experiences down on the rest of us. Don’t fall for this. Think of the world you want for you and your families, and make it happen. Elect a person who has experience, who works and lives and raises their family here in Atascadero, who wants to make things better for all of us, not just some of us.
Look to the future.
Vote Ellen Beraud for supervisor.
Dan Cook
Templeton
This article appears in Feb 6-13, 2020.
To further clarify the history of the Faces of Freedom veterans monument, when it was going through the required approval processes years back, it needed the official OK from an arts committee. The advocates for FoF bypassed that procedure and wanted to ram it through. This was a factor in Ms. Beraud’s “no” vote as city officials take an oath to govern by procedures.
If you visit Faces of Freedom today, you’ll notice that the oversize sculpture group obscures the beautiful memorial walls with their roll call of Atascaderans who have served their country. The gigantic charging soldier with the stiff national flag seeming to grow out of his back is an awkward statement to say the least. This clumsiness of concept is made more so by the artist imposing faces of soldiers onto the flag, as if they were mutant growths. Unfortunately, it is the artistic element that detracts from the sober sense of honor and memory that one hoped the monument would convey.
If you still support war monuments, watch The Americanization of Emily. Garner has a great anti hero worship speech that should persuade most viewers that we need to celebrate peace not war or the military.
Does anyone remember how we react to Russian or Chinese displays of tanks and military personnel? Why we avoid such displays?
#NeverBeraud
#Atascadero4Arnold
Also, hug a tree, Hanoi Lightfoot.