A message from our Executive Director, Sue Young

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

The newspaper ad below was the first step taken by a dedicated group of veterans and the community who wanted the West Los Angeles VA property to reawaken the spirit of The Old Soldiers Home. They created a veteran-directed organization that could become guardians of the Veterans’ West Los Angeles land, preserving and protecting it from commercial development. This became the Veterans Park Conservancy.

Our organization worked hard with Senator Alan Cranston (D-Cal), who authored The Cranston Act that preserved 103 acres of the West LA Veterans Affairs Medical Center property, preventing any sale or long-term lease to commercial developers.
At that juncture, the VPC developed a business plan incorporating input on how the VA campus should evolve from numerous veterans service organization, VA staff, government officials, UCLA, churches, synagogues, and service clubs. Below are the responses from the late Senator Alan Cranston (Chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee), then-Senator Pete Wilson and the late Congressman Sonny Montgomery (Chairman of Congressional Veterans Affairs Committee).

It was a good start. And for more than 25 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 VA officials and civic leaders who have been partners in our mission to preserve, protect and restore this extraordinary 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

Letters from supporters:

Senator Alan Cranston

Senator Pete Wilson

Representative Sonny Montgomery