Draft-dodger memorial has leaders scrambling
Reaction of U.S. veterans to news of a proposed Canadian memorial to Vietnam War draft dodgers has been so intense that civic leaders in Nelson, B.C., have distanced themselves from the project, the mayor of the small town just north of the border said Tuesday.
The Nelson City Council on Monday passed a resolution to buy newspaper advertising saying it was not involved with the proposed memorial, which is a private venture.
Mayor Dave Elliott said he has received a flood of e-mail and telephone calls since he attended a Sept. 7 press conference announcing the memorial in his lakeside community. “Most of them were nasty,” he said, although some were positive.
There are threats of boycotts by people in the Spokane area, which Nelson counts on for ski tourism in the winter. The Veterans of Foreign Wars has called on President Bush and Congress to pressure Canada to stop the project.
“The city of Nelson doesn’t deserve this,” Elliott said.
In announcing Our Way Home, a celebration set for July 8-9, 2006, organizer Isaac Romano said the purpose was to honor “the courageous legacy of Vietnam War resisters and the Canadians who helped them resettle in this country.”
The celebration would include music, speakers and other events. A bronze sculpture, showing a draft dodger being welcomed by two Canadians, would be unveiled at the event.
Romano issued a statement late Monday saying he was reconsidering the project.
“The Our Way Home National Reunion organizing group will be looking broadly for the appropriate setting for the peace monument. It may or may not be located in Nelson,” the statement said. Romano did not return telephone calls.
Nelson City Council members Doug Jay and Ian Mason say the event could damage the region’s extensive tourist trade with the United States.
“The involvement of the city of Nelson in this would spell certain economic disaster for members of our local business community that trade with or rely on American tourist dollars,” Mason said in a press release.
The VFW supports the right of the Canadian backers to build the memorial, but cannot support the message, said John Furgess, the national commander of the 2.4 million member organization.
“This exercise of free expression is an absolute slap in the face to every man and woman who ever served in uniform … both in our military and theirs,” said Furgess, a Vietnam veteran from Tennessee.
“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,” he said.
On Monday, Paul Cellucci, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, told reporters he understood the feelings of veterans who were offended by the proposal. He said he will wait for direction from the administration before getting involved.
“I can sympathize very much with the veterans,” he said. “They have pretty strong feelings, particularly about people they served with who were killed in action defending our values and our freedoms.”
An estimated 125,000 Americans fled to Canada to avoid the Vietnam draft. Many settled in British Columbia, especially in the Gulf Islands off Vancouver Island, the Sunshine Coast northwest of Vancouver, and the West Kootenay, the interior region where Nelson is located. About half returned to the United States when President Jimmy Carter granted them amnesty in 1977.
Elliott, now the target of a petition calling for his resignation, said Nelson has a diverse and liberal population that welcomed the draft dodgers. He now believes the celebration is a bad idea because it is so controversial, but said he would not try to block it.
“The Vietnam War is something everybody would like to put behind them,” Elliott said. “Let’s do a monument to peace or something that will bring people together.”