A Kinder, Gentler Veterans Memorial : San Pedro: A revised proposal for a monument to Korean War veterans has softened the original work’s images of battle.

They are still the images of war. Of men huddled in battle. Eyes searching, hearts pounding.

But the images are softer now. Gone are the soldiers aiming rifles at the enemy. Now the soldiers are helping each other. Gone, too, are the towering figures. Instead, these soldiers are smaller. More real. More like those who really fight and sometimes die in wars.

Two years after a battle raged in San Pedro over a proposed monument to Korean War veterans, a new memorial is taking shape. Planned for a different site, drawn to a different scale, it is a monument that many former critics now support in tribute to veterans of what many call America’s Forgotten War.

The new monument, still awaiting final approval from the city of Los Angeles, is to be called the International Korean Veterans Memorial. Until last year, it was known as the International Korean War Memorial.

But the name, like many other elements of the memorial, has been changed over the last year both to accommodate critics of the proposal and to leave no doubt about the monument’s purpose.

“We are not memorializing the war. We are memorializing the veterans,” said retired Marine Col. Joseph Smith, president of the memorial committee’s board of directors.

The evolution of the monument began in mid-1989 when a group of San Pedro residents protested the proposed site of the memorial--a five-acre parcel donated by the city next to the Korean Friendship Bell in Angels Gate Park.

The site, critics charged, was inappropriate. It was, they said, too close to a bell symbolizing peace and too imposing for the tranquil, seaside park, regarded as a refuge for many who live and work in the harbor area.

Since that controversy, which proved bitter and painful to both organizers and opponents of the memorial, the proposed site of the monument has been moved to an area about 300 yards north of the Korean Friendship Bell. The new site, though also in Angels Gate Park, is between two World War I batteries near the Ft. McArthur Military Museum.

Just as important, organizers of the memorial have refined their vision for the proposed monument, hoping it reflects the concerns of many of those who opposed its predecessor.

“It is a little less bellicose, a little less violent,” said Smith, who also runs Los Angeles County’s Department of Veterans and Military Affairs. “It’s a matter of tone.”

Toward that end, Smith and others like Jack Stites, one of the memorial’s longtime organizers, have redesigned the monument so that it no longer depicts soldiers, in 10-foot-tall statues, readying for battle with guns pointing in all directions.

Instead, the new monument will show a dozen soldiers, each about six feet tall, during what appears to be a break in battle. The soldiers’ guns are at their sides or resting nearby.

“We rescaled the figures so they will be closer to life-size. In the jargon of sculptors, that is approximately six feet tall,” Stites said. “We just felt, after talking to a lot of people and listening to our project engineer, that visitors to the memorial will have a warmer reaction to figures that are life-size.”

For that same reason, he said, the new design calls for adding a field hospital nurse to the monument. The nurse, arms outstretched, will not be within the cluster of soldiers but about 40 yards away, on a walkway surrounding the elevated memorial.

“Some felt the old monument was too aggressive, so we have taken it to a mode that shows the teamwork needed in combat,” Stites said. “It is one soldier helping another, still in danger, but not actually fighting.”

The changes have already been sufficient to sway some of those who once challenged the committee and its plans for the monument. “I feel confident about the reconciliation of the parties,” said Dick Chenowith, who was among those who fought the original project when it came before city agencies, including the Department of Cultural Affairs.

Today, Chenowith said, he no longer opposes the memorial. The proof? Chenowith said he intends to attend a fund-raising dinner for the memorial Tuesday night in at the Compri Hotel San Pedro.

Still, for both sides in the dispute over the old memorial, the memories of their clash remain clear and sometimes painful.

“They took it that we were anti-vet. Of course, we were not anti-vet. And as things wound down, I think we actually were helpful in addressing some of the issues of the monument,” Chenowith said.

Colleen Clement added: “It was very ugly.”

Unlike Chenowith, Clement said she still has concerns about the monument’s design, principally because its central image does not include a woman. “From the proposal I’ve seen, I would like to see some refinement of the statue.”

At the same time, Clement said she has no plans to challenge the new proposal as she did the last.

Barring a significant new dispute over the monument, the latest design--already approved by the city’s Cultural Affairs Department--will come before the city’s Recreation and Parks Commission in the next several months.

“There are many issues that the sponsors and the community have gone over, and there may still be issues that surface. But the ones that were the lightning rods seem to have been addressed,” said Dave Conetta, who reviewed the project for the Recreation and Parks Department.

If the monument clears future hurdles, from environmental reports to public hearings, the final challenge could be financial.

Organizers estimate the cost of the memorial at $3.5 million and say they have raised about $1.25 million. They hope the fund-raiser next week will help narrow the gap.

“It is just money now,” said Juanita Chavez, a San Pedro attorney who leads a citizens group supporting the memorial. The post previously was held by her husband, who died last year.

“We’re moving forward,” Stites said.

The group, he noted, even has a date for dedicating the monument: July 17, 1993. The 40th anniversary of the end of the Korean War.