WHAT'S AT STAKE?
In a word, Liberty.
WASHINGTON, DC – Today – days before Memorial Day – Liberty Legal Institute joins five veterans groups, representing over four million veterans, to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to save the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial from being torn down by the ACLU, the subject of Salazar v. Buono to be heard in The High Court’s 2009-2010 term. The coalition is launching a major campaign to draw attention to the case: www.DontTearMeDown.com.
“Our nation is only as secure as we remember those who have given their lives for the freedom that we now have,” said Kelly Shackelford, chief counsel of Liberty Legal Institute and attorney for the veterans groups. “The issue of saving this veterans memorial is something nearly every American will be interested in.”
The seven-foot-tall memorial cross, erected in 1934 by World War I veterans as a war memorial to honor all fallen soldiers, stands in the midst of the 1.6 million-acre Mojave Preserve. The legal case arose when a former National Park Service (NPS) employee living in Oregon sued for the memorial’s removal. Following attempts by Congress to designate the memorial as a national memorial and to transfer the land to the VFW, the District Court and Ninth Circuit Court both ruled that the memorial is unconstitutional and must be removed. The court also ordered the memorial covered with a plywood box until the U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
"A story untold is a story forgotten," said Joe Davis, public affairs director for the VFW. "We must tell the story of our veterans and fallen heroes, and we must keep this veterans memorial."
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