COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL May 25, 2016
3A
The meaning of Memorial Day
C.G. Museum exhibit explores vets and graduates
BY SAM WRIGHT
The Cottage Grove Sentinel
On Sunday, the Cottage Grove Mu-
seum hosted a Memorial Day exhibit to
showcase old gear and historical mili-
tary equipment from local donors, as
well as remembering the fi rst graduates
of Cottage Grove High School. The ex-
hibit kicked off with a guest speaker,
Jonathon Landon, a retired U.S. Army
Chaplain who served on active duty and
reserve time for a total of 28 years. In
his speech, Landon suggested that the
meaning of Memorial Day has become
lost on most Americans.
“It has become a national day of bar-
becue,” he said. “It has become a day
off from work to celebrate ‘all things
summer.’” Landon continued to point
out, however, that Cottage Grove’s Me-
morial Day tradition is a solemn and
appropriate one.
Every year, the tradition is to gather
in the Armory in the morning, then
proceed to the Memorial Park, where a
wreath of fl owers is cast into the river
while ‘Taps’ is played.
“That tradition is solemn, dignifi ed,
honorable and appropriate,” Landon
stated.
But the issue within the commu-
nity on Memorial Day is attendance of
C.G. Memorial
Day celebration
Monday, May 30
Begins at 11 a.m. at the
Cottage Grove Armory
such a ceremony. Where usually there
are only about 200-300 that attend,
Landon believes that based on this
town’s population, there should be
at least 1,000 from veterans and their
families alone.
Landon says that this is a result of
an overall dwindling understanding
about the military among the public.
According to a New York Times article
referenced by Landon, less than half of
a percent of the population currently
serves in the armed forces, while over
12 percent served during World War II.
Furthermore, 70 percent of Congress
members had military service under
their belt in 1975. That fi gure has now
dropped to only 20 percent.
It was pointed out that it is some-
times the small details that perpetu-
ate this lack of understanding or lack
of knowledge about the military. The
Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Administration published an article in
2010 titled “Understanding the Mili-
tary: The Institution, the Culture and
the People.” But the cover photo of the
online article shows military service
members standing shoulder to shoul-
der, and the caption reads: “background
image of soldiers in fatigues standing
at attention.” The problem is that they
aren’t soldiers. They are Marines. Sol-
diers serve in the Army, Marines in the
Marine Corps, sailors in the Navy and
airmen in the Air Force.
“If you told a counselor that you
served in the Marines, and that coun-
selor then referred to you as a soldier,
wouldn’t that reduce your trust in that
counselor’s ability to understand you
and your military experience?” Landon
asked.
Landon offers simple, yet important
solutions to fi xing the problem.
“Before we can educate the pub-
lic, we need to persuade them that
this knowledge is important,” he said.
Landon stresses that the public and our
nation’s leaders must fi rst understand
how little they know about military life.
He then suggests that their needs to be
N EW LIBRARY ENVISIONED
T
he Cottage Grove Li-
brary currently features
an exhibit that aims to imag-
ine its successor.
During their winter term, a
class of 45 graduate students
at the University of Oregon
focused their design efforts
on creating a vision for a
new Cottage Grove Library.
The group focused on sites
at Main and Seventh Street
downtown, which were cho-
sen so students would have
the challenge of designing a
contemporary library building
in a historic context.
Community Services Di-
rector Pete Barrell pointed out
that the exercise was merely
theoretical; there is no current
plan or funding to replace the
Library, but Barrell said the
Library is already frequently
short on space for its pro-
grams.
“However, this could be
interpreted as the fi rst step to-
ward envisioning what the li-
brary in Cottage Grove might
look like fi ve, 10 or 20 years
in the future,” Barrell said.
A visit to the Library of-
fers the chance to peruse the
designs of a few of the 45 stu-
dents.
photo by Sam Wright
Mary and Jim Gilroy listen to a presentation by Army chaplain Jona-
thon Landon Sunday afternoon.
an improvement in the visibility of vet-
erans in communities and that military
service members and veterans should
address the public regularly.
But most of all, Landon says that
Memorial Day and other memorial ser-
vices and ceremonies should be treated
seriously.
“For our families and friends at the
passing of a veteran, there is little com-
fort in the medals and badges; however,
there is tremendous comfort in know-
ing that a grateful nation recognizes
and honors the important contribution
made to the freedom of our men and
women who were willing to put our
lives on the line,” he said.
Flood code gets public hearing
A
ttendees at the Cottage
Grove Planning Com-
mission got a chance to hear
an explanation of the proposed
changes in the City’s Flood
Damage Prevention Code,
which aims to help curb such
damage locally in the event of
a fl ood.
City Planner Amanda Fergu-
son told the crowd last Wednes-
day, May 18 that the proposed
new code has been updated in
an effort to ensure that Cottage
Grove be included in the com-
munity rating system of the
Federal Emergency Manage-
ment Agency, which provides
federal fl ood insurance for those
structures required to carry it.
The new code would primar-
ily affect homes near the Coast
Fork of the Willamette River,
Ferguson said, as much of the
land around the Row River is
owned by the City. The Coast
Fork is quite channeled out,
Ferguson said, so the fl oodway
can usually be defi ned as the
area between its banks, and the
only properties that should be
affected by the code are located
near River Road.
A more stringent code
throughout a municipality can
help reduce fl ood insurance
rates, Ferguson said. In April,
Ferguson and Community De-
velopment Director Howard
Schesser attended a class that
she said uncovered how out-
of-date Cottage Grove’s cur-
rent code is. State and federal
laws have changed in response
to disasters such as Hurricane
Sandy, and the new code would
bring the City into compliance
with the most recent codes.
The code recommends that
no construction be allowed in
the fl oodway, though homes
already built there are “grand-
fathered in” unless their owners
choose to substantially improve
their dwellings. During public
comment, two longtime citizens
spoke of the uproar created when
FEMA attempted to redefi ne the
fl oodplain in Cottage Grove in
the 1980s, which would have
led to the requirement to pur-
chase fl ood insurance for many
properties.
“The proposed codes are a
little tougher, and that can’t be
good from a layman’s position,”
said David Hemenway. “FEMA
is going to try to expand the
fl oodplain, and we can’t let that
happen.”
The proposed code will ap-
pear before the City Council for
another public hearing on June
27.
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