Arena Should Surrender On Vietnam Display

The purpose of artillery, as any soldier knows, is to soften up the enemy’s defenses.

But mortar shells and cannon fire aren’t the only effective forms of bombardment. Take the nearly 300 telephone calls launched the other day at the Public Facilities District board that oversees the Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena.

The salvo was fired by concerned area citizens with an honorable goal:

They want the Arena to accept a permanent display of personal items left by people who visited the traveling Vietnam Wall Memorial that stopped here in May.

In October, the facilities board voted 3-1 (with one member abstaining) against putting up the shallow 16-foot cabinet filled with medals, notes from home, photographs and tributes.

“It is sad the board rejected the proposal to display this exhibition,” wrote University of Idaho student Michael Adams in one of the many e-mail letters I received.

“To see the memories of these veterans displayed in public would mean a great deal to their loved ones, while educating the public on what they went through.”

Naysaying board members claim they don’t want to set a precedent by letting in such a memorial.

The real reason, however, is that they believe such a memorial might sour the mood of ticket holders on their way to a concert or big time wrasslin’ match.

Nothing remotely like that would happen. Created by Dave Strand, a Mount Spokane High School art teacher, the display is a sensitive tribute to some of the young men who didn’t make it back home.

The Arena is a cavernous building with acres of wall space. Sacrificing a small chunk for this doesn’t seem unreasonable.

But don’t give up the fight, folks. Thanks to your efforts, a change of heart is blowin’ in the wind.

First, Trish McFarland, who stubbornly insists the board will “stand by this decision,” is no longer chairwoman. Her term recently expired.

Replacing her is Carl Lind, a Korean War veteran and pragmatic man. Lind was the lone member who abstained during the vote.

He’s savvy enough to realize the low-key board on which he sits has blundered onto one mother of a public relations land mine. Spokane, he knows, is a city unashamed of its military heritage.

“We’ll bring it back up and reconsider it,” he said of the veterans’ display. “You can count on that.”

To help adjust the board’s thinking, veterans are trying to enlist some powerful allies.

Monday night, the Spokane City Council unanimously approved a resolution asking the facilities board to reconsider its stand.

The Arena board “ought to have the common sense” to see that the public is overwhelmingly in favor of this, says City Councilman Jeff Colliton, a Vietnam vet and one of the original backers of the exhibit. “What we’ve been trying to do is offer the Public Facilities District a little wiggle room.”

A similar resolution will go before the Spokane County Commission, says Vietnam vet Jim Youngman, one of the point men leading this crusade.

Youngman plans to attend the Dec. 8 Public Facilities District board meeting with resolutions and a few vets in tow. This will be a polite reconnaissance mission. No threats. No shouting.

Wiggle room.

“You don’t use your nuclear devices until there are no other options,” says Youngman, who served in the U.S. Army. “The last thing I want to do is have a mass demonstration down at the Veterans Arena.”

That, of course, can certainly happen. Youngman said he was contacted by one service group that offered him access to 1,500 names for a march on the Arena.

Let’s hope it won’t get to that. Let’s hope these board members see they are in a losing battle and embrace the only military strategy that makes sense: Retreat.