Arlington West Book

ARLINGTON WEST MEMORIAL a project of Veterans For Peace

Mathieu Grandjean

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

-Margaret Mead

Arlington West Memorial a project of Veterans For Peace

Photography by Mathieu Grandjean

INTRODUCTION

by Mathieu Grandjean

Veterans For Peace is a national organization dedicated to the abolition of war and to social justice. It was founded in 1985 mostly by Vietnam War veterans but also includes men and women veterans of all eras from World War II to the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In an attempt to control public opinion of the U.S. war policies and to hide this consequence of the war from the American public, a 1991 federal ban - known as the Dover Ban - was enacted to prohibit media coverage, including photographs of the coffins of deceased American soldiers being returned to the United States via the Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. The Dover Ban was reissued in March 2003 and has sometimes been extended to other military bases, including Andrews Air Force Base and the Ramstein U.S. Air Force Base, located in Germany.

Offended by this attempt to keep the public unaware of the human toll of its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a local resident of Santa Barbara, a non military veteran and remodeling contractor Stephen Sherrill, decided to create a visual representation of the mounting death toll as the number of American soldiers killed neared 300. He envisioned building a mock cemetery at the Santa Barbara beach, California and constructed unpainted wooden crosses. When he had enough markers to match the number of U.S. fatalities (340 by that time), he placed them randomly without any straight line on the beach Sunday, November 2nd, 2003.

As the death toll rose and the responsibility of managing this installation week after week became too laborious for Sherrill alone, the Santa Barbara Chapter of Veterans For Peace endorsed it as its own project. Therefore, the first Sherill's peace installation took on the name of Arlington West Memorial, referring back to the Arlington National Military Cemetery in Virginia which has a central position in the American mind and a nodal point of American culture. The Los Angeles Chapter of Veterans For Peace has been erecting Arlington West Memorial on Santa Monica beach, every Sunday since February 15th, 2004.

Each white wooden cross is carefully positioned in the sand with uniformity appropriate to a memorial. The cross was chosen for its simplicity, not for its religious connotation. The memorial provides a place to honor, acknowledge

and grieve for the more than 5,500 American soldiers killed in the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to reflect upon the more than one million civilian deaths as a consequence of war and occupation in those countries.

It also provides a place to reflect upon the current path of U.S. policies abroad and of its consequences domestically as well as shedding light upon the history of the United States.

The work of Veterans For Peace is to seek justice for those returning from war and for those who are victims of war. It is an acknowledged fact that over 500,000 returning military personnel have been wounded.

This number includes cases of hearing damage, cases of traumatic brain injuries, amputations, and the all too often hidden wounds of war Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Furthermore, Arlington West Memorial is designed to provide a site that fosters dialogue and reflection on war. The veterans enlighten about the costs, consequences of war and militarism on the American society. They use their personal experience in the military and in combat zones to seek peaceful effective alternatives than war while still respecting the opinions from visitors, veterans and military families. Finally, they inform the public about the needs of returning veterans and their families with a deep respect of every individual, something that happened rarely in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Those who came back from Vietnam were not often greeted with ticker tape parade, or cheering crowds as was done in previous war.

Nevertheless, it happens that some people still disagree with the memorial and criticize these veterans publicly, accusing them of using American soldiers' memory for a political statement against the war.

A day at the memorial is quite unique. Every Sunday before sunrise, a dedicated core of veterans and non-veteran volunteers are already in action to begin the set up process, which can take up to four hours to complete the full setup. Some spend all day at the memorial answering questions from the public and taking care of grieving families who come to the memorial. The list of names and portraits of fallen American soldiers is updated on a board every week. Visitors are welcome to select a name and may express their own thoughts on tags or write their sentiments in a guest book. They are also free to walk through the memorial.

For special occasions, such as Veterans Day or Memorial Day, flag-draped coffin processions are organized through the city of Santa Monica and the memorial is on display for two or three days in a raw with candles burning

at night in the front of crosses. Because Veterans For Peace has a limited space on the Santa Monica beach, the number of crosses is restricted to 3,000. The red one represents ten soldiers and in front of flag-draped coffin the blue one symbolizes those killed the previous week. The memorial has to be taken down before the sunset. It takes at least two hours to complete this task and to get it ready for the following Sunday.

Since the set up of Arlington West Memorial in Santa Barbara at the end of 2003, Veterans for Peace members and non military volunteers have effectively transformed what was originally a backlash to a misinformation into a genuine memorial. Arlington West Memorial has become a powerful visual representation of the human cost of the U.S. engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is a place where families of the fallen and the general public can make a pilgrimage. It is one of the first times that a temporary weekly memorial is assembling during the progress of a military campaign.

In comparison in Washington, D.C., the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, funded by private funds, was finished by 1982 and the World War II memorial, was opened in 2004.

Funded by public donations, Arlington West Memorial is expected to be on display every Sunday at Santa Monica beach until the end of the U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. From now, many duplications of Arlington West Memorial and others such as Eyes Wide Open exhibition which features hundreds of pairs of combat boots honoring U.S. military casualty, have sprung up across the United States.

On February 26th 2009, the Pentagon lifted the ban on media coverage of the returning flag-draped coffins at all the U.S. Air Force Base but yet the true realities and horrors of war remain largely hidden from the American public.

This photo-documentary (2005-2008) was the starting point of a long-term project called Backdraft, what it means to support the troops. Backdraft critically explores the domestic consequences of America's armed forces endeavors on military veterans and their families. It looks at the work of individuals or organizations that provide for their needs or that explore the intrusion of militarism in the U.S. society.

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CAPTIONS page 23: left to right: Press conference of Jeff, Iraq War veteran, Ron Kovic, Vietnam War veteran and author of "Born on the fourth of July, Vicky, (Gold Star Family for Peace) lost her son in Iraq and Gore Vidal, author and political activist. page 25: Military deaths by suicide have been on a dramatic rise in recent years. American active duty soldiers killed themselves at the rate of one per day in June 2010, making it the worst month on record for Army suicides, eighteen veterans kill themselves every day. Michael Jon Pelkey committed suicide after his return from Iraq.

page 29: Many grieving families are leaving mementos or personal notes on the crosses (over 1600 mementos). They are becoming the emotional core of the memorial.

spread 38/39: Steve Davis, handy man. He is one of the core volunteer who improved the efficiency during the set up and take down of the memorial by building wooden cart.

page

41 : Steve Bowers, volunteer.

page 48 : David Troy, Vietnam War veteran.

page 49 : Stephen Sherryl.

page 51: Carlos and MĂŠlida Arredondo. Their son was killed in Iraq on August 25, 2004. Since then, Carlos is traveling through the United States with a mobile casket in the back of his truck as a memorial and protest to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

page 52: More than 200,000 female soldiers have served thus far in Iraq and Afghanistan. Maricela served in the Navy from 1998 to 2002. She was raped while in boot camp, but was too scared to talk about the assault for the rest of her time in the military. She is still healing and struggling with the symptoms of PTSD, but she is channeling all of her anger into activism.

page 52 : Bill Mitchell is the co-founder of Gold Star Family for Peace. He lost his son in Iraq in 2004.

page 53 : Fernando Suarez del Solar (father of one of the first soldiers killed in Iraq) is the Founder and Director of the Guerrero Azteca Peace Project (GAPP) to encourage alternatives to war and militarism. page 53 : Jeff Key, member of Iraq Veteran against the war, is the writter and performer of the play THE EYES OF BABYLON, a "personal struggle� to reconcile being part of a war he knows to be illegal and immoral and a profound commitment to the reasons he became a Marine.

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page 56 : Linda, volunteer.

page 56 : Harvy Glen, Vietnam war Veteran, Agent orange victim. Agent Orange is a code name for a Monsanto's herbicide and defoliant used by the U.S. military in its herbicidal warfare program during the Vietnam War. page 57: Michael, Vietnam War veteran is the president of the Los Angeles chapter of Veterans For Peace.

"I needed something to do, so I joined the Navy after High School. I came back from Vietnam and all I wanted to do is to use drugs, drink, and no pay attention to myself. It took me a long time to realize that. When you got something in your mind, you do not give you a chance to allow others things to come back to you. With Arlington West Memorial, we have an opportunity to show people different idea of thought, to get people thinking and start some dialogue between themselves, with us and others people". page 57 : Mark Scully, Vietnam War veteran, was the coordinator for Arlington West Memorial in 2004.

page 59 : An Iraq War veteran is paying tribute to one of friends killed in Iraq.

page 65 on the right Vicki: "I had gone down to Arlington West Memorial on Memorial Day 2007, because it was the one month mark of my boyfriend being gone and I thought it would be a nice thing to go and pay my respects to the ones that were lost and to pray for the ones still fighting.

It helped me realize everything that I should not take for granted�.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My deepest gratitude to the members of Veterans For Peace to let me in the intimacy of Arlington West Memorial.

Veterans For Peace : veteransforpeace.org / veteransforpeacela.org / vfpsb.org Arlington West Memorial : arlingtonwestsantamonica.org Military Families Speak Out : mfso.org Iraq Veterans Against The War : ivaw.org

Mathieu Grandjean is a French photographer; He has been living in Los Angeles since 2004. Using both digital and traditional processes, he primarily works with black and white film for his long-term photo documentary projects and portrait studies and prints himself his black and white images with the traditional silver gelatin enlargement process. He was selected by the Bourse du Talent in 2003 and 2005.

His work has appeared in Lightmediation.com, 100eyes.org, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Bagnewsnotes.com, Liberation, Figaro Magazine, Latences. His work has also shown in the The Power House Arena (New York), the Annenberg Space for Photography and the 13th International Los Angeles Photographic Art exposition (Los Angeles).

His project Backdraft will be shown at the 2010 Fotografia Festival in Rome, Italia.

ARLINGTON WEST MEMORIAL PHOTO-DOCUMENTARY WAS MADE POSSIBLE WITH THE SUPPORT OF KODAK WHICH PROVIDED ME WITH MY ALL-TIME FAVORITE FILM: TRI-X FILMS. KODAK.COM mathieugrandjean.com - matgrandjean@gmail.com - 310 948 0286 92

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