Retired Marines Vow to Fight for Memorial : Military: Backers of proposed war museum at Camp Pendleton hope to persuade the base commander to drop his opposition.

A group of retired Marine Corps officers announced Thursday that it won’t abandon plans to build a $20-million war memorial at Camp Pendleton, even though the base commanding general has rejected the project.

The group has the support of Rep. Bill Lowery (R-San Diego), who has requested a meeting with Lt. Gen. Robert Johnston in hopes of finding a way for the 35-acre memorial to be built on the sprawling Marine base.

Meanwhile, the group also will search for sites in Oceanside in case Johnston remains opposed to building the project--a museum, auditorium, library, parade deck and memorial grove--by Camp Pendleton’s main gate.

“We’re not giving up,” Randy Mitchell, a retired major and spokesman for the Pacific Wars Memorial Foundation, said Thursday.

The nonprofit foundation is run by former servicemen, including five retired Marine generals, who have worked for seven years on the memorial dedicated to the men and women who fought in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

Envisioned as both a tribute and an international tourist attraction, the project won conceptual approval from former Marine Commandant Al Gray and Camp Pendleton’s two previous commanding generals.

However, Johnston, who took over last year, informed the foundation in January that he would reluctantly deny permission for the project to be put on base. He cited increasing demand to use land for military housing, fighting and support units, and for government-required environmental open space.

The foundation’s president, retired Lt. Gen. E. J. Miller of Carlsbad, talked to Johnston nearly a month ago, but he couldn’t change Johnston’s mind.

It appeared that the project was dead until Thursday, when the foundation said the effort hasn’t been dropped.

Lowery’s office sent a letter to Johnston asking for a meeting “in an effort to determine if there is a potential solution which could protect the Marine Corps’ needs at Pendleton, and enable the memorial and museum to become a reality.”

Mitchell said the foundation still prefers to put the memorial near Interstate 5 at the main base gate because the site has freeway access and a view of the Pacific.

“There are no plans to use that property for anything,” Mitchell said. A base spokesman said last month that there are plans for new military housing near the main gate.

If the foundation cannot get approval to build at the preferred main gate location, Mitchell said, other sites on base should be explored.

“We don’t want to cause a great furor over this thing, but we generally think Gen. Johnston made a mistake,” Mitchell said.

Meanwhile, Miller has asked the city of Oceanside, which gave the foundation $30,000 for a project feasibility study, for continued support. In a letter this week to interim City Manager Jim Turner, Miller wrote that “ . . . we are not closing shop.”

A location on base is desired partly because the land, presumably, would be donated. However, Mitchell said “we are going to look for sites in Oceanside, but we really prefer to stay where we are.”

It’s uncertain whether there are appropriate sites in the community.

“We remain very much in support of the project,” city spokesman Larry Bauman said Thursday. “The problem is finding a location that’s zoned and has proper access.”

Bauman added that “certainly the city is not in a position right now to give away land.” Oceanside faces a multimillion-dollar budget deficit and potential staff layoffs.