How to waste 600K of taxpayer dollars on political correctness
Taken from the San Diego Union Tribune
Building design comes back to haunt Navy
September 24, 2007
They plumb missed the bird's-eye view.
That's what the Navy says.
Amazing as it sounds, a Stonehenge-size facsimile of the most hateful symbol of the 20th century was overlooked until it was too late to reconfigure.
Let's back up a bit.
Almost 40 years ago, during the height of the Vietnam War, construction began on a six-building complex at the Coronado Naval Amphibious Base, south of Glorietta Bay.
Designed by prominent San Diego architect John Mock, the original blueprint consisted of two central buildings “and a single L-shaped 3-story barracks,” according to the Navy's official account.
AdvertisementThe plan called for the L-shaped building to be repeated three times at 90-degree angles from the central buildings.
After the groundbreaking, Navy officials experienced a classic “Oh, no!” moment.
Viewed from above, the buildings known as NAB Complex 320-325 formed the outline of a massive swastika, an ancient symbol forever stigmatized by Hitler's Third Reich.
These days, painting a swastika on public buildings constitutes a hate crime.
What do you say about buildings that form a swastika?
Well, time passed. The aerial homage to Nazi Germany quietly settled into the landscape.
Beginning last year, however, thanks to the satellite imagery service Google Earth, NAB Complex 320-325 burst into an Internet supernova.
What for decades was at best a jumpy glimpse from an aircraft became a crystal-clear horror show frozen in time and space. Indelibly stamped into the heart of the military base, the swastika hits you like an iron fist.
Type in “Coronado” and “swastika” on Google and you'll find some 60,000 hits, most of them referring to the now-notorious complex, which most San Diego County residents are unaware of.
Surfing the sites, you run into bizarre theories posing as facts.
German POWs built the complex during World War II as a tribute to Hitler. Nearby buildings, shaped like planes, are flying toward the swastika.
The truth, as the Navy says, appears to be less exciting.
Architect Mock, whom I could not reach through family members, told a KFMB-TV reporter last year that he knew what the overhead perspective looked like at the time, but he still didn't believe that the unconnected buildings constituted a true swastika.
Technically, maybe not.
Viscerally, for sure.
After learning of the controversy last winter, Rep. Susan Davis, D-San Diego, who is Jewish, said she had discussed the buildings with the Navy and “was supportive of their efforts to find a feasible solution.”
Despite the sensational subject, the swastika story received relatively light press coverage here – a TV report and a comprehensive December article in the San Diego Jewish Times.
After that sunburst, the swastika buildings dropped off the media radar.
Behind the scenes, however, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish organization dedicated to eradicating hateful speech and symbols, was quietly tracking the Navy's efforts to develop a “feasible solution.”
Every couple of months Morris Casuto, local director of the ADL, called up the office of Rear Adm. Len Herring, commander of the Naval Region Southwest, to inquire how things were going.
“I'm not prepared to prescribe evil motives,” Casuto told me. “Everyone makes mistakes. But when you screw up, say you're sorry – and fix it.”
Acutely aware that the Navy had higher priorities during wartime, Casuto wasn't asking for major money or time.
Maybe something along the lines of a tarp stretched between buildings.
Something, anything, to alter the symbol that evokes anguish among many Jews, World War II veterans and others.
On Wednesday, Casuto received good news.
“I now have the sense the Navy is committed to changing this because they know it's right,” he told me, the admiration ringing in his voice.
After studying and rejecting various forms of camouflage, the Navy has budgeted $600,000 for fiscal 2008 to finally solve what it considers a “legitimate concern,” said Scott Sutherland, deputy public affairs officer for the Navy Region Southwest.
“We take this very seriously,” Sutherland stressed. “We want to be a good neighbor.”
Two corrective measures likely will be blended, said Sutherland, who had just been briefed by Navy engineers. The first adds pavement, rock formations and landscaping to blur the offensive profile.
The second envisions large photovoltaic panels on the roofs of NAB Complex 320-325. If that's done, solar power will be generated from atop the transformed Coronado swastika.
What some might view as a sour lemon, a poor use of Navy money in a time of war, could wind up generating a steady stream of sweet juice. |
