“Let us not oversell the notion of peace without giving cause to freedom,” said U.S. Army Reserve Drill Sergeant/Alderman Alex Rhodeen (pictured) as he launched a rebuttal to peaceniks’ pleas in a peace-war showdown in City Hall.
Rhodeen smelled something fishy in the New Haven Peace Commission’s request to the aldermanic Municipal Services Committee Thursday night. It all concerned the city’s landmark East Rock Park.
First, the “Angel of Victory” got transformed into the “Angel of Peace,” restored and hoisted to the backdrop of peace banners. The beacon of East Rock, first dedicated to war veterans, now stands for peace.
Thursday, Peace Commission members pushed further, requesting that East Rock be designated a “peace park.” There would be no signage, promised New Haven Peace Commission Chair Al Marder. There would be no renaming — just quietly designate it a “peace park” like the one on the Ella Grasso Boulevard by the razed Oak Street neighborhood, he requested.
Marder called his requests “modest” — rename the pavilion “A Lookout for Peace” and hang occasional banners there promoting the message.
“What we’re trying to do is say that the purpose of the veterans in our community is to establish a culture of peace,” said Marder, a four-year veteran and Bronze Star recipient. “We’re not suggesting in any way that the park be touched.”
Marder’s group got the Park Commission’s blessing to do as it pleased, as long as banners were removed and the park was not otherwise altered.
When he came up against the Municipal Services Committee, the plans got slammed. Debate had been postponed for two months until Rhodeen could join the debate.
After Marder made his case and left, the alderman launched his counterstrike.
First, the designation leaves some war veterans feeling “slighted”, said Rhodeen. Then there’s the plan to rename the pavilion, where Marder said his group would post, for example, artistic banners touting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The latter got the alderman suspicious: “I get a little concerned when I hear nothing will happen, then I’m told about the banners and leaflets.”
He took issue with the veteran’s argument for endorsing “an atmosphere of peace.”
“The point was made that veterans fight for peace, and while that’s certainly a component of it, note that veterans really fight for freedom — currently there’s peace in Cuba, yet people there are not free. So, let us not oversell the notion of peace without giving cause to freedom, which is really why people fight and why they serve this country.”
Marder wasn’t there to respond, nor to hear his proposal get rejected by three other aldermen.
“I’m not comfortable with the cause-du-jour renaming of the park. I think it’s inappropriate,” said East Rock Alderman Roland Lemar. Yale Alderman Nick Shalek agreed.
“I get a little concerned when veterans get concerned and people’s feelings get hurt,” weighed in Quinnipiac Heights Alderman Robert Lee.
One voice backed up the peace-proponets: “You drive any direction in this town and you find streetcorners named after reverends” and preachers, noted Hill Alderwoman Dolores Col√ɬ≥n. “Non-Christian city-dwellers live with those names. Can’t pro-war people live with something named after peace? Anyway, the city deserves a nicer peace park, because the one on the Boulevard is “just a spit of dirt that is neglected.”
Col√ɬ≥n’s yea-vote was outnumbered 1 to 3, crushing the proposal.
One important correction, I serve as a Drill Sergeant in the United States Army Reserve - not as a member of the United States Marine Corp.