A message from VPC Executive Director, Sue Young

"VETERANS TOUCHED OUR HEARTS AND INSPIRED US TO PRESERVE THEIR LAND"

"This newspaper ad was the first step taken by a group of veterans and the community who wanted the West Los Angeles VAMC to reawaken the spirit of The Old Soldiers Home. They created a veteran-directed organization that could become guardians of the West Los Angeles Veterans Land and preserve it from commercial development. It became the Veterans Park Conservancy.

"Our organization worked hard with Senator Alan Cranston (D-Cal.) who authored The Cranston Act which preserved over 80-acres of the West LA Veterans Affairs Medical Center property preventing any sale or long-term lease to commercial developers.

"It was a good start. And for over 22 years, we are still on the job.

"It has been a privilege for me to work with the dedicated members of the Veterans Park Conservancy. All of us are grateful to the generous contributors, concerned citizens, West Los Angeles VAMC officials and civic leaders who have all been partners in our mission to preserve, protect and restore this medical center property for the American veteran."

SUE YOUNG

Here is one of the 15,000 responses we received from the Ad in the Los Angeles Times:

July 31, 1986

To: The Los Angeles Times

Saving this land means a lot to me—as the great-grand-daughter and grand-daughter of Generals in the U.S. Army. My father died at Castle Point. Though he was old and in pain, I think the beauty of the surroundings meant a lot to him.

Don't take the Westwood VA away from the vets or from its neighbors.

When all the green is gone, when there's nothing there but a concrete slum—nothing anywhere—the old soldiers shall have fought in vain.

In haste but with passion, signed,

Shad Campbell Coman