'Stonewalk' activists let police impound war memorial

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- A memorial to civilian war victims stopped short of its intended resting place Friday after police impounded the 2,000- pound tombstone during a rally just outside Arlington National Cemetery.

Volunteers tugging the granite slab, which measures 6 feet by 4 feet and is engraved with the words "Unknown Civilians Killed in Wars," finished their six-state odyssey in the middle of Memorial Bridge, which crosses the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial to the cemetery.

"Were we to complete the journey today and bring it to Arlington, the stone would be discarded, rejected like the very message it embodies," said Lewis Randa, the "Stonewalk" director.

Randa arranged for a U.S. Park Police escort, then impoundment of the memorial, because "this stone has no home." He promised his group will return for it once Congress passes a law allowing its erection at Arlington.

So far, no sponsor has come forward.

Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., was asked to introduce the necessary legislation, but he didn't feel the group's request was feasible.

"We'd be glad to work with them to make sure it gets placed in another position of prominence in Washington, but it's just not going to happen (in Arlington)," said Kennedy spokesman Larry Berman.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Park Police said the stone would remain in a secured lot for a certain period but would be destroyed if it went unclaimed.

Randa has led about a half-dozen "stonewalkers" on a 450-plus mile trek since leaving July 4 from the Boston suburb of Sherborn, Mass. The procession traveled on secondary roads and highways, beside motorcycles, cars and 18-wheelers. It picked up, and dropped, additional volunteers from each community along the way. Leading the walk in Washington were Hugh Thompson and Larry Colburn, two of three Army soldiers credited with stopping the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War.

"We wanted to be vulnerable," Randa said. "We wanted to not have enough people so people would help us."

Turnout was overwhelming in some regions, spotty in others. The stone rests on a 1,500-pound cart, and at moments when the caravan lacked enough people to drive it up hills, Randa said, enough motorists always pulled over, jumped out and helped push to clear the obstacle.

The group arrived Thursday in Washington and rested all afternoon on the Capitol's west lawn. At night, the "Stonewalkers" pulled the monument to the Lincoln Memorial for a foot-washing ceremony and an anniversary memorial service for those who died when the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II.

Randa wants the stone to ultimately rest near the Tomb of the Unknowns but officials say that's unlikely.

Arlington National Cemetery was established as a shrine to those who served in the armed forces, said Dov Schwartz, a spokesman for the Military District of Washington, which runs the cemetery.

"The law says that monuments will be accepted only if they honor those dying in the military service of the United States," Schwartz said.

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