Nelson right to dodge monument
Canadians know more about America than Americans know about Canada. If you don’t believe us, try to answer these three questions:
Who’s the prime minister of Canada?
Can you name the easternmost province?
How many American draft dodgers sought asylum in Canada during the Vietnam War?
OK, the final question was unfair. But it’s related to a political firestorm taking place in Nelson, B.C., 147 miles north of Spokane. The resort community, known for its artsy culture and outdoor lifestyle, is embroiled in a controversy as a result of plans by Our Way Home, a Nelson-based private organization, to erect a statue and sponsor a festival in 2006 in honor of U.S. draft resisters.
Initially, Nelson Mayor Dave Elliott supported the offensive memorial, but he later backed away. According to CBC News, the Nelson City Council decided at a special meeting Wednesday there would be “no public money or public land for a monument unless it had broad public support in the community.” It doesn’t.
Councilors Ian Mason and Doug Jay, along with members of Nelson’s business community, deserve credit for withholding the town’s stamp of approval. If Canadians know nothing else about the United States, they should know that America honors its military veterans – with parades, memorials and a national holiday – and remains conflicted about the Vietnam War and the role protesters played.
A memorial to the roughly 125,000 Americans who fled the country rather than serve in the military in the 1960s and 1970s would rub salt into an old wound – and further damage a strained relationship between the United States and Canada.
As Nelson merchants have learned, the Our Way Home plan, which was aired at a press conference in September with the mayor in attendance, threatens their bottom line. American veterans, their families and fellow citizens who admire military service, after all, have a right to protest, too, by avoiding the beautiful resort area, and they have.
John Furgess, the national commander of the 2.4 million Veterans of Foreign Wars, didn’t mince words when he told the Associated Press: “To honor draft dodgers, deserters, people who brought grief to the families they left behind and anguish to those American men who took their place, is an abomination.”
Not only would the memorial dishonor U.S. military personnel who fought – and in many cases were injured or died – but also the brave Canadians who served in Vietnam alongside them.
Organizer Isaac Ramano of the Our Way Home Reunion is apparently reconsidering where to locate the monument – a bronze statue of a Canadian welcoming two draft dodgers: “The Our Way Home National Reunion organizing group will be looking broadly for the appropriate setting for the peace monument,” he told CBC News. “It may or may not be located in Nelson.”
A more appropriate setting would be beyond human habitation within the Arctic Circle.