NEWS: Columnists: Tom Weber
A parable of unity for our times
Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - Bangor Daily News
Amid all the bitterness in the country over the war in Iraq, the recent flag controversy in Waterville emerges as something of a parable for our times.
If there is any lesson to be learned from it, perhaps it's that the very symbols that divide us so deeply can also help us to understand, if only we stop shouting long enough to listen to one another, how much we may have in common in the end.
As many of you have read, the flag flap began on Nov. 10, the eve of Veteran's Day, when five members of an area Veterans of Foreign Wars post were arrested on criminal trespass charges after they defied a police order and began tearing up more than 2,000 white flags planted at Waterville's Veterans Memorial Park to remember the Americans killed in the war.
The veterans said they saw the white flags as symbols of retreat and surrender, and so considered them to be disrespectful of the memory of the fallen troops.
Yet the people who planted them there, members of the Waterville Area Bridges for Peace, said their flags were not meant to represent surrender at all, but rather to symbolize mourning, just as the white crosses do at the Arlington National Cemetery and at other memorials worldwide.
At the same time in Blue Hill, a similar display of white flags that covered a private field of apple trees across from the American Legion Hall elicited no such flag-induced acrimony.
Of the 40 or so people who gathered at the field that day to read aloud the names of each American casualty, people who carried signs protesting the war stood peacefully in the company of veterans who wore their military regalia proudly. There was no us-and-them, only decent people who had come together to pay tribute to the precious lives lost and the suffering of the loved ones left to grieve.
"It's hard to understand for anyone who has never been there what veterans are called upon to do," said Kim Hawkins of Trenton, a 42-year-old veteran of the Persian Gulf War whose leather bomber jacket was adorned with Army badges. "I'm not justifying it, I'm just saying listen with a compassionate heart."
Meanwhile, back in Waterville, a remarkable thing happened less than a week after the unfortunate war of symbols had erupted. Bothered by the bad feelings that the incident had caused in his town, Samuel Shapiro, a member of the VFW and the American Legion, quietly went into the park with a few other veterans and began planting small U.S. flags. They didn't rip up the white ones, as others had done, but placed the U.S. flags alongside them.
Arne Springorum, who had organized the white-flag-planting project for Bridges for Peace, was riding to work on his bicycle that morning when he saw the veterans in the park. He asked if he could join the effort, and together the small group planted 2,050 U.S. flags beside the white ones - different symbols representing different views, perhaps, but all coexisting ultimately as a symbol of a shared mutual respect and civility.
As this contentious war grinds on in the distance with no end in sight, just trying to resolve conflicts peacefully among ourselves is a sign of progress, the value of which cannot be overestimated.
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Show of unity in vets park
By JOEL ELLIOTT
Staff Writer
Copyright C 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
WATERVILLE -- The war of symbols may have met a peaceful, collaborative end in the small field of multi-colored flags that now wave across the small grassy plot in Veterans Memorial Park.
Five people have been arrested over the two-inch square white flags that were planted by Waterville Area Bridges for Peace members in commemoration of the U.S. war dead in Iraq. Concerning the flags, people have derided the war and each other, praised the soldiers and written heated letters.
But yesterday morning, with no fanfare, members of various veterans groups -- plus one Bridges for Peace member who happened along -- gathered together to take what may have been the first step toward a peaceful resolution.
About a dozen veterans and friends met early Tuesday and began planting American flags beside the white ones. A Waterville native and member of both the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, Samuel Shapiro had requested the permit earlier the previous week, but in all of the confusion of the five arrests on the eve of Veterans Day, he wasn't granted permission to put up the display until now. With a donation from Waterville business owner George Gordon and assistance from the VFW, Shapiro went to work, attempting to put out his own message without squelching anyone else's.
"I just thought it would be a way to sort of calm things down with all the rhetoric," Shapiro said.
Shapiro, a World War II veteran, said they were busily putting in the American flags within the ranks of white ones, when a Bridges for Peace member joined them. They didn't recognize him at first.
Local peace group member Arne Springorum was riding his bicycle to work around 7:30 a.m. when he saw the little group. After asking permission, Springorum joined them, and together they planted all 2,050 American flags in the park, peace group member and Vietnam-era veteran Bill Lord said.
"Isn't that awesome?" Lord said. "(This was) the very thing that we had hoped would occur, which was a dialogue, instead of a conflict."
Lord said the group did not initially know who Springorum was, or that he had served as chairman of the project to plant the original, white flags. After a bit of conversation, however, they introduced themselves, but then went back to work planting American flags.
Springorum did not wish to be interviewed, but commented briefly.
"I was just happy that we could do that together," he said.
Shapiro said he felt that, from the beginning, the Bridges for Peace members did not mean the flags to dishonor the troops, but rather to call for those still living to be brought home quickly, although the veterans saw it differently.
But after the all of the controversy that has raged over the meaning of the white flags, what does the combined display convey?
"To me the markers, which were the white flags, signify the loss of life, and the American flag signifies the country that they died for," Lord said.
Shapiro said he saw it as a way to promote civil speech.
"It just seemed like a good idea in order to dissolve any further warfare
(in Waterville)," he said. "... It's something that bothered me. I live by
the credo of Lincoln, 'To sin by silence makes cowards of men.' "
Joel Elliott -- 487-3288, 861-9252 jelliott@centralmaine.com