Ingrates we are

The New York Times has an article by Monica Davey about some veterans who don't have their hearts in the right place:

The small population of Vietnamese-Americans in Wichita, Kansas imagined a new monument in the local Veterans Memorial Park, a peaceful slope along the Arkansas River blooming with monuments to soldiers gone. They pictured an American service member, in bronze, his arm resting protectively around the shoulder of a South Vietnamese comrade— an appreciation, they said, of the Americans’ alliance in a war that shaped their lives. But, in an effort to remember an old friendship, the bond seemed to come apart a little. To the surprise of the Vietnamese here, some American veterans objected to the plan. And after long, tense talks, a compromise emerged last month at City Hall: the monument will sit just outside the John S. Stevens Veterans Memorial Park (named for a former local official and veteran), set apart from the rest of the memorials by a landscaped, six-foot earthen berm, with no sidewalk between. Still, some of the American veterans, who see the park as a place to remember American service members alone, say the compromise location is still too close, and they worry about what group (Iraqis, for instance) might be the next to want to erect a statue so near.
Some of Wichita’s Vietnamese-Americans, meanwhile, say they feel slighted at the notion that a memorial meant to celebrate the Vietnam War alliance must be separate, hidden, as one put it, “behind a Berlin Wall". “For myself, this hurts,” said Nga Vu, who grew up in Vietnam and whose brother died in the war. Ms. Vu carries a memory from her childhood of seeing an American soldier for the first time, whom she remembers as tall and intimidating but who turned and gave her money. “It is a connection I will never forget,” she said, adding that she arrived in this country alone, but felt embraced by southern Kansas and America. “How could people now separate us with a wall?” she asked. “Why the need?”
Wichita’s Vietnamese, fewer than 10,000 residents in a city of 358,000, had been pondering a memorial for years. Some $40,000, Vietnamese leaders here say, has already been promised by private donors for what is now expected to be a $165,000 project. The point, they say, is to honor Americans who fought the North Vietnamese and to remember fallen South Vietnamese soldiers who have no home country left for their own memorials.
A plaque planned for the site reads, in part, that “we would like to express our profound gratitude for those who fought along our side, and to the American people who have embraced us with wide open arms and provided us with new opportunities.”
In 2006, the Wichita park board unanimously approved the Vietnamese-Americans’ proposal. But recent objections from American veterans left city leaders trying to sort out what their predecessors had intended the park to be when it was created more than thirty years ago. Was it just for American veterans, or might American allies— and perhaps others— also have a place? Officials said a search of city council records offered no clear answers.
The city owns the land, some 3.5 acres, but most of the monuments— dedicated to those who fought or died in Korea and Vietnam, and on behalf of those whose children were service members killed in wars, the merchant marine, Navy submarine veterans, and many other United States service members— were paid for and are maintained by veterans’ groups.
“The entire park was created solely for America’s veterans who fought America’s wars for America’s armed forces,” said Philip W. Blake, who served in the South Pacific in World War II and spends many afternoons here tending to the monuments. “The memorial they wanted was going to be dead center in the park.”
Some other opponents said they objected to an incense burning urn that is to be part of the Vietnamese-American monument. A few noted unhappily that some Vietnamese-Americans here continued to wear their old South Vietnamese military uniforms at special events.
In all the debate, said John Wilson, an Army veteran from the mid-1970s, the American veterans had been unfairly painted as bigots. “This doesn’t have anything to do with being Vietnamese,” Mr. Wilson said. “This is about serving in the American military. That’s it.” Mr. Wilson, who helped create a veterans’ group to oppose the notion, the Kansas Veterans Action Committee, was one of a group of four American veterans and four Vietnamese-Americans called into meetings this year with the Wichita city manager to resolve their differences. When someone— a city official, according to the Vietnamese leaders— suggested placing the monument on city-owned land adjacent to the park, but separated by an earthen wall, Mr. Wilson said he had trouble persuading other veterans to go along at first. “But I can live with it being over there,” he said, as he walked through the park last week, “because it will be walled off.” That said, even Mr. Wilson acknowledged that the prospect of a separate area for the Vietnamese-Americans’ memorial felt awkward. “To be honest, if it were me, I would be offended,” he said. “It makes it look like they’re stepchildren.”
Some Vietnamese-Americans in Wichita— where relations, generally, have long been mostly genial, according to many here— said they were unconcerned now about the prospect of a berm. They said the memorial was what counts. “This is the way that I can tell my grandchildren, and your grandchildren, about what happened,” Khanh Kim Nguyen said. “We have friendship. We live here with freedom, and 58,000 Americans died for our freedom.” But the Reverend Kenny Khanh Nguyen, who had been one of the leaders who agreed to the wall, said he had gone along with the idea because his Vietnamese-Americans in Wichita were not ones to fight over such things. “This has divided us, our American community, and we don’t want to make this a thing that will divide us,” Mr. Nguyen said. “But I hope that it will look silly to our children and grandchildren. I hope that the next generation will take down that berm. And I hope that the relationship can heal later on.”
The City Council approved the new plan— berm and all— on a 7-to-0 vote. The Council made it clear that Veterans Memorial Park was meant to honor American service members exclusively and gave veterans’ groups a role in deciding what types of memorials to include in the future.
Mayor Carl Brewer said this was the wish of both sides, so who was he to argue? Still, he acknowledged recently, he feels a bit uneasy. “The idea of separate but equal is distasteful to me,” said Mr. Brewer, who is black. Mr. Brewer also served in the Army for twenty years, and his City Hall office is filled with military art, including one battle image above these words: For he who sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.

Rico says he's not sure how he got this email already, but it pretty well sums up his opinion, too:

To the Kansas Veterans Action Committee:

As a Vietnam-era veteran of the U.S. Air Force, I am embarrassed, disappointed, and ashamed of your fight to ban the Vietnamese/American statue from the 'American' Veterans Memorial Park, as reported in today's New York Times. I am appalled that the City Council went along with it.
You may say it's not racism, but your decision reminds me of a sign I saw in a park in Sumter, South Carolina when I was stationed at Shaw Air Force Base in the early 1970s. With a little re-wording, perhaps the sign would work in your park. A photo of it is below. In June I revisited that South Carolina park for the first time in 37 years. The sign is gone. How long will it take Wichita to correct its mistake?
I think you should err on the side of being considerate and welcoming and sensitive to the wishes of your Vietnamese-American neighbors. In the meantime, I stand with them.

Cal Deal
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
USAF 1969-1973
363rd Tactical Reconnaissance Wing