Give Morris chance to honor heroes

Dear Gurnee mayor and board members: My name is Rick Biesada, I'm a Lindenhurst resident, and I sat through your board meeting on Monday evening, Oct. 5. I was concerned about the controversy over the war memorial, and I walked away with a feeling of disgust. There seemed to be a tone that no action had been taken as far as the war memorial was concerned by the mayor, or the trustees, yet you terminated Mr. Morris who headed the project. I'm not an attorney, but I would conclude that terminating Mr. Morris was the first legal action to be tested in court, if this cause is adjudicated. I hope that it is not, and I hope that this project moves forward as planned, but by the boring and smug looks by the board members, I really don't know if you fully understand the consequences you are facing economically, if you don't follow through with this monument to our fallen hero's.

I understand that the Village of Gurnee lost six members of your community fighting to secure our liberty in Iraq. Six out of a small community of 30,000 is a large sacrifice. Actually it's six too many as far as I'm concerned, but it brought back memories to me, that's one reason why I went to the meeting, to see if the mayor and the board members were out of touch with reality.

As a young Marine fighting in Vietnam with H&S Company, First Am Trac Battalion, attached to the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Recon, 44 years ago, we would hear stories about war protesters back home. Nobody believed these stories at the time, we were too busy, we had other things on our minds, like getting back home alive. Now that I'm home, I have seen that these stories were true, and that our government has been infiltrated by anti-American sentiment at all levels, even in the small villages of 30,000 people or less, and this is distressing to the families who have to live with their sacrifice.

I'm fortunate, I made it home, but to guys like Mr. Morris's son, the other five residents of Gurnee, and the hundreds of thousands of troops who died in the line of duty, making the ultimate sacrifice for you to have the freedom of looking dumb during your board meeting, or trying to project a wily and cunning excuse to a packed house of veterans who have figured your intentions to be political chicanery, you are doing a disservice to those Americans, their families and to every person who ever wore the American uniform.

Rick Biesada

Lindenhurst