Plaque Caught Between a Rock and Park Service

The sailors who served with and beside Capt. Ken Walden had nothing but good to say of him.

He had a marvelous sense of humor. When morale was low, he could be counted on to boost it. And he worked at least as hard as anyone he supervised; he didn’t let colon cancer interfere with his job commanding the missile range at Point Mugu, until there was no choice.

Walden, a highly decorated Vietnam vet, died in 1989 at the age of 47.

His colleagues at Mugu so loved him that they embedded a memorial plaque into a boulder on Santa Cruz Island, one of Walden’s favorite spots. Its dedication 10 years ago was a big event. Walden’s family and friends and assorted dignitaries and a TV news crew were on hand.

Adm. George Strohsahl, then commander of the Pacific Missile Test Center, told how he bestowed on Walden the Legion of Merit “on the last day he could even stand up.” That award is second in stature only to the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Francis Gherini, a member of the family that then owned the eastern section of Santa Cruz Island, called him “a peach of a guy.”

To Walden’s admirers, all was as it should be. From time to time, some even held barbecues at the captain’s monument a quarter-mile inland from Smuggler’s Cove.

So it’s little wonder that they went ballistic when they heard the plaque had been unceremoniously removed by the National Parks Service nearly two years ago.

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This is not the first time the Parks Service has been involved in what might charitably be called a public-relations blunder. While it manages a lovely offshore wilderness, the agency also has managed to breed plenty of enemies, embittered patrons who can’t forget its SWAT raid on a hunting camp and several other high-profile episodes of ham-handed enforcement.

For its part, the service says it scrupulously follows the law, and acts only in the best interests of a fragile environment. Nobody ever claimed sensitivity training was part of the agenda.

The story of Walden’s plaque actually begins before his death.

A frequent visitor to Santa Cruz, he heard about a boulder that had split open after tumbling down a shoreline cliff. Inside the massive rock was the preserved backbone of an ancient animal--a fossil that would be worn down by the pounding surf.

Walden arranged for a massive, two-rotor Navy helicopter on a training mission to move the rock to Smuggler’s Ranch nearby. That rock would shortly come to bear his plaque:

“In memory of Capt. Kenneth A. Walden, USN . . . A distinguished naval aviator who loved the great outdoors and the churning seas. He often found refuge on this scenic island. May this fossil remind all of the indelible mark he left on those of us who knew him. His friends at PMTC [Pacific Missile Training Center], Point Mugu.”

Fast-forward to 1997. In February, the Parks Service seized the century-old Gherini sheep ranch--the site of Walden’s memorial--to complete Channel Islands National Park.

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Under federal law, it then had to remove all private items on the newly public lands and attempt to find their owners.

Channel Islands National Park spokeswoman Carol Spears said there were “thousands of pieces of personal property: beds, dishes, stumps that the caretakers used as outdoor stools, old rusted car body parts, farm implements, fence wires, sheep, peacocks, cattle.”

And one memorial plaque.

The plaque didn’t belong there, Spears said. The National Park Service had never approved it. And despite Francis Gherini’s evident enthusiasm for it, at least two other members of the sometimes divided family thought removing it was the right idea.

“We never heard of Capt. Walden and our family was never asked for permission,” wrote Thomas Gherini in a recent letter to the Park Service. “We never placed plaques to honor anyone, including family members who labored [on] the island for many decades during the family’s ownership history.”

So the plaque was taken from the boulder and stored in one of the old adobe ranch buildings nearby.

In February, Jim McCrory, a pilot for a helicopter service that works frequently in the Channel Islands, stopped by the memorial. He was saddened by the blank spot where the plaque had been. A Navy veteran, he had served under Walden in the Philippines and still laughs over the captain’s futile attempt to ride a water buffalo in a local parade.

“He was the neatest guy,” McCrory said.

McCrory said a park ranger allowed him to fly the plaque back to his office in Oxnard for safekeeping. McCrory assured the ranger he’d call officials in the Park Service, as well as Walden’s old friends at Mugu, to figure out where the plaque would finally rest.

Four or five months went by. But neither the Navy nor the Park Service picked up the ball.

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Finally, this summer Ted Green, another of Walden’s Mugu colleagues, got involved.

Green, it must be pointed out, is no fan of the Park Service. The agency thwarted his retirement plan to run a communications business on Santa Cruz, where he’d installed equipment for the Navy for the better part of 36 years.

“A few months before Capt. Walden died, he said, ‘I don’t want you to forget me, Ted,’ ” Green said.

He wrote letters of complaint to Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), whose district includes Channel Islands National Park. He alerted the media. He spread the word to veterans groups. One of them says it has protest petitions with more than 500 signatures.

Suddenly, there’s a renewed interest in doing something about the plaque. In July, a Park Service official retrieved the plaque. Meetings are underway to determine what will be done.

But why did it all take so long?

Spears, the park’s spokeswoman, said it was tough to determine the plaque’s rightful owner, as required by law. Personally, I think a legal intern could come up with the short list in an afternoon: Walden’s widow, or the Mugu personnel who donated the plaque in the first place.

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And then there were the thousands of beds, rusted car parts, farm implements and everything else.

“It’s our responsibility to find correct and legal owners for everything,” she said.

But wouldn’t finding the owners of a memorial plaque have greater urgency than finding the owners of, say, a bedspring?

“I can’t say we have any special priority for these objects,” Spears replied.

In any event, the Navy and the Park Service are talking about the possibility of placing the plaque on a Santa Cruz hilltop the Navy leases for radar towers.

“I truly feel they want to work out a solution,” said Cora Fields, a spokeswoman at Point Mugu.

Like most compromises, it will leave some people dissatisfied. The Navy won’t hold the hilltop forever. And the question of visitors in an area with sophisticated radar equipment remains open.

But the big issue isn’t really location, location, location. It’s how the Park Service can manage change without confrontation.

That’s a monumental question.

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Steve Chawkins can be reached at 653-7561 or by e-mail at steve.chawkins@latimes.com.