Mt. Soledad Cross Memorial Saved

This should be an end to the long and costly fight to save the Mt. Soledad Cross.

The Mt. Soledad Memorial Association purchased the land where the Cross is located from
the Department of Defense to save the 43 foot cross that had been erected in 1954.

The battle began in the late 1980s, when the ACLU and the Jewish War Veterans sued to have
the cross removed; saying that it was against their constitutional rights. Claiming it violated the
separation of Church and State.

It is not proper that the Association should have been forced to purchase the land from the
government.

Preserving this monument which is a tribute to all fallen members of our Armed
Forces, which is part of a larger memorial with over 3,700 plaques honoring veterans of
various wars.

At a price of $1.4 million the land consists of one-half acre that surrounds the Cross it seems
like a very costly venture, but one that is well deserved to honor our fallen veterans.

California Representative Duncan Hunter and Senator Dianne Feinstein were instrumental
in writing and the passage of legislation that made this possible.

In a related attack on a memorial, in 2012 a court ruled that the Mohave Desert Cross owned
by the National Parks Service could be sold to the VFW. The VFW will maintain the Cross.

All our nation's veterans should hail this victory and the ensured safety of another Memorial
to our fallen brothers and sisters.

---- Jerald Terwilliger Chairman Emeritus,  American Cold War Veterans "We Remember" ---------------- "And so the greatest of American triumphs... became a peculiarly joyless victory. We had won the Cold War, but there would be no parades." -- Robert M. Gates, 1996