An El Toro Proposal Everyone Can Like

In my 18 years working and living in this county, I’ve never seen an issue so divisive as the brouhaha over what to do with the El Toro Marine base after its 1999 scheduled closure. A new airport, yes or no?

Maybe we can all find some common ground, at least on one tiny segment of that Marine base. A suggestion I think has terrific potential: Somewhere on that base--whatever its future--leave some kind of living memorial to the people who served there.

Lt. Col. Vanda Bresnan, who retired from the Marines 10 years ago, suggests that the Officers Club would be an appropriate site, along with what is already designated as the Marine Memorial Golf Course on the south end of the base.

“The Officers Club could be converted to a place where veterans organizations all over Orange County could go for meetings or events,” she said. “A place where veterans would feel at home and know that they’ve been remembered.”

Bresnan is active in a group called United Veterans Organizations of Orange County, which is pushing for such a memorial. It’s one issue in which those with pro and con views on a new airport might find themselves on the same side.

For example, you can bet that many members of United Veterans who live in the southern part of the county are staunch opponents of the airport proposal. Yet one of the biggest supporters of establishing a veterans memorial there is Supervisor Charles V. Smith, who is a strong advocate of an international airport at El Toro.

The Marine base currently has a magnificent history museum, but its artifacts will be shipped to other Marine bases when El Toro closes. Bresnan’s group believes many other military artifacts are available around the county that could be gleaned for display at what is now the Officers Club. In her vision, each of its rooms would have a different military historical theme.

Bresnan spent 20 years in the Marines, the last six at El Toro. Like many of its veterans, she chose to remain in Orange County in retirement. Bresnan did not fight in any wars herself, but she told me a story about why this living memorial is so important to her:

A veteran friend once told her he wanted nothing to do with veterans groups and didn’t want to talk about his own service. But finally she got him to open up about his World War II military service. She learned that he had been on the shores of Normandy two days after D-day. His crew’s job was to take large hooks and drag out the bodies of American soldiers shot down by Nazi firepower and left in the surf. It’s a scene you don’t easily forget.

“We have to let people know what the facts of war are,” Bresnan said. “People have to know why we must care about veterans.”

Splash Get Splish-Splashed: Mary Viviano of Orange says the recent (and perhaps temporary) shutdown of the Splash indoor soccer team at the Pond is one of the county’s great losses.

“It was the only affordable sports entertainment around for a family of five,” Viviano said. “The music was great, the players friendly. The Pond was a lovely setting. We just hate to see them go.” One player even gave one of Viviano’s children a soccer ball on his way out the arena door.

Viviano and her husband and their three children also attend an occasional Mighty Ducks hockey game. But the Ducks’ cost for a family of five runs a minimum of $150, she said, more than three times the cost of a Splash game.

Though the Continental Indoor Soccer League has taken over control of the financially beleaguered Splash, the team is still in the playoffs, which begin Monday in Sacramento.

Golden Memories: A great joy of this job is getting the chance to hear from people when a column stirs their own memories. I’ve heard from at least a dozen people who grew up in Fullerton before World War II and were familiar with Golden Hill, the subject of Tuesday’s column. Most were unaware, as I was, that it got its name from the surrounding fields of wild mustard blooms.

Dick Carroll of Laguna Hills, who grew up in Golden Hill, brought up something I didn’t know, but maybe some of you remember. In 1927, just a few months after his famous trans-Atlantic flight in the Spirit of St. Louis, Charles Lindbergh landed in that field just west of Golden Hill known in those days for its barnstormers. People from all over Orange County brought their youngsters just to see this great hero. Carroll says Lindbergh even took some of the children for a plane ride.

“I was one of the lucky ones who got to go up with him,” Carroll said.

The Golden Hill homes tour, sponsored by the YWCA of North Orange County, is scheduled for Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. In Tuesday’s column, I wrote that it was this weekend, but I should have made clear the tour will not run on Sunday.

Wrap-Up: If you step into the county’s Veterans Services office at 1300 S. Grand Ave. (Building B) in Santa Ana, the first thing you’ll see is an honor roll of Orange County men and women killed or missing in action during America’s wars--1,080 of them. The list includes not only their names but the dates of their deaths and, in many instances, how they died. (It was a surprise to me to see how many in World War I died of disease.)

There is also a dramatic display of newspaper photos of those from Orange County killed in World War II--360 of them. But many photos have never been made available to the Veterans Services agency. Doug Boeckler, staff member in charge of the display, told me that his office would love to add to the honor roll if anyone has such a photo at home. Call his office at (714) 567-7485 for further inquiries.

But take note: Boeckler says his office sometimes gets calls from Orange County residents whose loved ones were killed in war but did not live here. The display is restricted to those who lived in Orange County at the time they left to serve.

* Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com