Homemade Memorial Is Stirring Passions on Iraq - New York Times
A field of white crosses with a sign stating that they were in memory of the Iraq war dead has stirred an ugly controversy in Lafayette, California.
At issue is a hillside memorial, made up of some 450 small white crosses and a 5-by-16-foot sign that reads: “In Memory of 2,867 U.S. Troops Killed in Iraq.” The memorial was created by Jeff Heaton, a building contractor and antiwar activist, who said it was meant “to get people involved on a local level” and talking about Iraq.
People are talking, and they are saying that Heaton has to take down his sign. Heaton is defending the sign as integral to his Constitutionally protected freedom of speech. The town, meanwhile, is not amused by a monument to war guilt.