Up in Arms : Possible Veterans Memorial Gets Loving and Loathing Looks in Carlsbad

Carlsbad artist Kenneth Capps had heard talk about a new veterans memorial being considered by the city, so he recently went to check out a model of the sculpture on display at his public library.

What he saw was the bronze figure of a dead soldier, wrapped in a shroud, one arm dangling over the edge of a simple rectangular pedestal. A combat boot and helmet protruded from beneath the burial cloth.

Capps circled the sculpture in disbelief. This, he asked, was a veterans memorial?

‘This Is a Slap in the Face’

“This thing could be mass produced by Toys R Us,” the artist later said. “But there are plenty of artists who specialize in this type of vulgarity, this crass commercialism, and it seems as though veterans memorials are a catch-all for each and every one of them.

“This isn’t a memorial to veterans, this is a slap in the face,” he said.

Another viewer of the piece had a different reaction:

“I think it’s wonderful,” the woman said, gliding her hand over the smooth bronze. “I like it--the feeling of it, the sadness.”

One thing can surely be said about the sculpture, which today ended a five-week display split between two of the city’s public libraries. Either you love it or you hate it. There is no in-between.

“There have been several people who have really liked it,” said Chris Holt, manager of the La Costa branch library. “But the most typical response is for a person to come up, look for a moment, and then take offense at it. The most striking thing about this sculpture, though, is that nobody feels lukewarm about it.”

Created by Denver Artist

City officials are considering using the work, created by Denver artist A. Thomas Schomberg, as a cornerstone memorial for its expanding parks system, after first displaying it outside City Hall.

“I’ve been after a veterans memorial concept for some time,” said Mayor Bud Lewis. “And we finally got the council to look into it. But, for a while, we weren’t sure what kind of memorial we wanted--a sculpture, a park, an amphitheater, a whale-watching tower or what have you.”

Lewis said the intent of the memorial is to honor veterans of all wars, both living and dead.

‘Too Many Bury Heads in the Sand’

“Too many Americans bury their heads in the sand and don’t appreciate the human sacrifice it took to get what we have today,” he said. “We wanted something that would make them think.”

This summer, one member of a special Veterans Memorial Committee appointed to explore the matter saw a version of Schomberg’s sculpture on display in downtown Denver.

Three copies of the 12-foot-high bronze were originally made. In addition to the Denver work and the one being considered by Carlsbad, a third will be installed soon on the Manhattan campus of Fordham University near Lincoln Center.

After several public meetings, the Carlsbad committee voted to display a model of the work. The group plans to next meet Sept. 14 to evaluate the response by the public before presenting the results to the City Council for a final vote.

“The cost of the sculpture is $250,000--half paid by the city, but the other half is going to have to come from private donations,” said Pat Hansen, coordinator of programs and exhibits for the Carlsbad libraries.

“That’s why it’s so important that people like the sculpture--enough so that they’ll donate.”

Responses to the Work

During the two weeks of display in La Costa, 67 people wrote the city to respond to the work, Hansen said. The verdict: 15 liked it, 42 did not.

Some said they like the work as a piece of art, but not as a war memorial.

“Most people who didn’t like it said they wanted something more positive,” she said. “They said it was depressing and negative, awful, macabre, gruesome and terrible.”

Or, as one viewer succinctly put it, “Please, don’t do this.”

Inspired by Indian Rites

Schomberg said the sculpture was inspired by the burial rites of Plains Indians near his home in Sioux City, Iowa.

“The Indians presented their dead on a burial scaffold to represent the transition between the world of reality and the spiritual world,” he said. “I’ve seen lots of memorials. I didn’t want any image of eagles carrying off warriors.

“Death is a reality of war. As a realist, I felt that had to be described.”

The reaction in Denver, he said, has been overwhelmingly positive.

“One lieutenant colonel wrote me about the first casualty of his platoon,” Schomberg said. “After viewing the work, he found a release. He said he didn’t have to carry around the guilt anymore.”

And once, he said, he saw a single rose laid at the base of the work. “This sculpture isn’t meant as a ‘Rally ‘round the flag, boys,’ ” Schomberg said. “It’s a difficult issue, and the reaction must be internal, from the individual.”

To those who reject his work, Schomberg said: “With them I take a Voltairean stand. I accept your view. But it’s contrary to my philosophy and my feelings.”

Browsers Passed It By

In the Carlsbad library, the miniature version of the sculpture sits sandwiched between the photocopy machine and a card catalogue file. On Wednesday, several library browsers passed by without even noticing it.

“It’s intended as a war memorial, but many people only associate the work with the Vietnam War and react to it on that basis,” Holt said.

Bill Levinson was one of those.

“I wish everybody would stop wimping and whomping about the Vietnam War and get on with their lives,” he said. “I disagree with this thing. There’s a lot more to war than dead bodies. Things are won and lost and often solved in wars. Death is just one aspect.”

Capps, who described himself as an artist and a military veteran, said the work is another copy of an already bad piece of work, the product of people who throw the concepts of art and sculpture “around like Frisbees.”

“There’s already too many of these things on display,” he said. “It’s like the guy in Australia who went from village to village selling this war memorial he’d designed.

Exact Replicas

“There were something like 50 editions of the thing. So each memorial became an exact replica of the next guy’s.”

After viewing the sculpture, Jerry Vincent, a Carlsbad computer analyst, said the concept is simple--maybe too simple.

“You look at this and see a lifeless carcass and you’re supposed to feel bad there’s been a death,” said the 31-year-old.

He said he would rather see a figure of a soldier on his knees praying, an image that could highlight the spirituality of surviving war and one that could be interpreted in many ways.

“War has done good for people in the long term,” he said. “It’s too easy for an artist to throw death in people’s faces and make them feel bad about it.”