Volunteers are Needed and Welcome Every Sunday at the Arlington West Memorial
Located just next to the Santa Monica Pier Setup starts around 7:30 AM on Sunday mornings. Take down starts about one hour before sunset Sunday evenings. It can take as long as 2 to 3 hours to set up and take the memorial down, depending on how many people are there to help. Every Sunday, this memorial is helping thousands of people to think about and consider the tremendous cost of the war in Iraq. Members of the LA Chapter of Veterans For Peace and many other volunteers have kept this memorial going ever since February of 2004. Please help them to keep it going with your presence when you can. It is a very rewarding experience and you get to spend time at the beach as well. HYPERLINK "http://www.arlingtonwestsantamonica.org"; \nwww.arlingtonwestsantamonica.org ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Each Sunday since February 15th 2004, a temporary memorial is erected in the sand just north of the pier at Santa Monica Beach in Los Angeles, California by the local chapter of HYPERLINK "http://www.veteransforpeacela.org/"; \nVeterans for Peace (VFP) and other volunteers as a way to acknowledge the human costs and consequences of war as an instrument of international policy and to mourn the loss of life at the hands of violence and the terrorism of war. Erected nearby stands a "wall" now about 45 feet in length similar to the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington D.C., listing all the fallen American military personnel since the U.S. invaded and occupied Iraq to the present day. Visitors can read any of the many names, ages, rank, hometown and circumstance of death, and are invited to select and write the name of a fallen military person on a piece of paper along with any thoughts or sentiments and attach this to a cross along with a flower. Many family members and close loved ones have come and dedicated their own words and mementos for their loved ones. Another sign nearby beckons attention to the number of Iraqi's killed. According to a study recently release by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and published in The Lancet Medical Journal, the number of Iraqi deaths since March 2003 exceeds 600,000. Recognizing that life is representative of concentric circles of interconnected relationships, each cross represents more than simply the loss of one individual life due to war. Arlington West offers a place to contemplate the human cost, consequences, and causes of war, and to grieve and acknowledge those who've lost their lives and to keep their memory alive and to care for those still living, their wounds, though invisible, being no less painful than the loss of a loved one. Originally conceived by Stephen Sherrill, a local carpenter in Santa Barbara, California in November 2003, the concept of Arlington West was quickly embraced by the HYPERLINK "http://www.vfpsb.org/"; \nSanta Barbara Chapter of Veterans for Peace and 340 wooden crosses were erected in the sand alongside the pier at Sterns Wharf and dedicated as 'Arlington West.' Santa Monica Beach was chosen by the HYPERLINK "http://www.veteransforpeacela.org/"Los Angeles Chapter of Veterans for PeaceHYPERLINK "http://www.veteransforpeacela.org/"; and was established February 15th, 2004. Arlington West has since been adopted by many local chapters of Veterans for Peace around the State of California as well as around the country. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. 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