‘Manassas Maulers’

Colman McCarthy can’t be serious (“Builders Can’t Desecrate a Battlefield if War Did So a Century Ago,” Op-Ed Page, July 26). Surely he must have written this nonsense just to elicit the response he is now getting from me.

What he is saying typifies perfectly the worst attitudes in this country regarding our own history. How can we possibly develop a sense of common culture and understanding of the road this country has traveled if we wipe out every vestige of our past so somebody can make another buck.

We are drowning in shopping malls and thirsting for places where citizens of this country can be in a place where significant events took place and reflect on their significance. It is one thing to read about historical events and quite another to visit and absorb the actual site and surroundings, sobering though the experience might be.

There is nothing to be learned from another shopping mall, unless it is the lesson that money is the only thing we care about.

GEORGIA FEINGOLD

Pasadena