SEAL statue creates controversy in Littleton

Sculpture of fallen warrior to include weapon in hands

Lisa Ryckman, Rocky Mountain News

Friday, April 6, 2007

The site for Danny Dietz's memorial occupies a corner near the Littleton middle school where he first dreamed of becoming a Navy SEAL.

It's the right place, his family says, to honor a hero who lived and died for his dream. It's the wrong place, other parents say, for a statue of a man with a gun.

"No one wants to hurt the family; that's the last thing we wanted to do," says Emily Cassidy Fuchs, who objects to the statue's location in Berry Park, near three schools, two park playgrounds and two day-care facilities.

"It really seems to me the city dropped the ball on this. They've lost sight of their responsibility to the community as a whole, including a large group of children."

Fuchs and other parents say they knew the memorial was in the works but only recently became aware of the nature of the statue and its location near Goddard Middle School, Centennial Elementary and Community School for the Gifted. Fuchs, a member of the city's Fine Arts Committee, said the monument never went through the usual approval process for public art.

Linda Cuesta, whose child was at Columbine High School during the murders on April 20, 1999, told the City Council last month that it would be a mistake to put the statue where hundreds of children would pass it every day.

"After our experience with Columbine and the clear message of nonviolence that we teach within the Littleton schools - honestly, what are we thinking?" she said.

But Dietz's widow, Patsy, said Thursday that comparing the guns at Columbine with the weapon in her husband's hands is like comparing a criminal's knife with a surgeon's scalpel.

"One is used to take lives," she said. "And the other is used to save them."

City officials said the City Council unanimously approved the contract for the sculpture in January and again in February, and a clay model was displayed at one of the meetings. Spokesman Chris Harguth said the city is moving forward with the project as planned.

"We respect that there are differing opinions out there, and we respect the right of our citizens to voice their opinions," he said. "The feedback we've received in the city manager's office has been overwhelmingly in favor of this project."

Plans for the memorial, scheduled to be unveiled July 4, began last summer after U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., asked the city to work with the Dietz family. Sculptor Robert Henderson created the statue from one of the last photos taken of Dietz before he was killed in Afghanistan on June 28, 2005. It shows a kneeling Dietz holding an M4A1 assault rifle with a grenade launcher.

"If I've got my 4-year-old at the playground, I feel it would be a threatening image that would frighten her," Fuchs said.

She said the ideal solution would be to place the statue at another location, but Dietz's family disagrees.

"What do they want us to do, stick it in a corner somewhere?" said Dietz's mother, Cindy. "It's about a hero. It's not about war, and it's definitely not about a gun."

ryckmanl@RockyMountainNews.com