Isn’t this just a classic Los Angeles story?
Fighting over land — who had it, who has it now, who’ll get it?
Right now it’s a fight in a courtroom, over who should have the right and the duty to decide the destiny of the hundreds of acres of the federal Veterans Affairs department’s West L.A. campus.
A Rich History
By L.A.’s yardstick of history, its story goes way back, like Queen-Victoria-and-first-movie-camera far back, to when it was first dedicated to the nation’s suffering soldiery, and then back a century before then.
First, long before that, the Spanish and Mexicans wrested it away from the Native Americans. Then, the Yankees wangled and wooed it away from the Spanish and Mexicans. Then, in 1888, its acres were set aside for disabled and destitute veterans.
The Early Years
The first Civil War soldier to move in was a private from New York, and so anxious was he that he pitched a tent, unwilling to wait for the wooden barracks to be finished. Some of the many fanciful gingerbread buildings that arose there were supposedly designed by the scandalously famous architect Stanford White and bore a resemblance to the Hotel del Coronado, which opened the same year.
The National Homes
These veterans had already done their share of fighting over land, battling across northern states and southern states — the United States versus the Confederate States, the land of the freed versus the land of the enslaved.
About six weeks before the Civil War and his own life ended, Abe Lincoln created a system of national homes for disabled U.S. soldiers, and in time, this Westwood land, about 600 acres of it, became the system’s westernmost outpost.
Life at the Home
Over four abattoir years, almost a third of a million of the Union’s "boys in blue" had been wounded — not all of them catastrophically, but so many unwell enough in mind or body that they had no work and couldn’t do any, and had no home and couldn’t find one.
And then, here it was, awaiting them, Southern California, the lustrous edge of the continent, promising care and the company of comrades. First came the blue-suited Yankees. Hundreds of them marched — marched — down from Northern California to this new billet.
Challenges and Struggles
The place had running water, a bakery, a library and a small theater — but it was a regulated life all the same, a barracks system with officers, uniforms, curfews and summons to meals and musters.
And no drinking. As many as 3,000 men at a time lived here, and for men in pain of one kind or another, worldly distractions beckoned — not just cigars and magazines, but fleshly delights.
The Fight for the Future
A federal judge, David O. Carter — a former Vietnam combat Marine, recipient of the Bronze Star and Purple Heart — has decreed that the VA broke faith with the place’s mission and undertook rich but illegal leases of the land to non-veteran interests — a baseball stadium for UCLA, a sports complex for a private school. And he ordered the VA to build enough housing for 2,500. Water must flow back uphill.
Conclusion
As President McKinley visited Los Angeles and the Soldiers’ Home in May of 1901, he said something that bears repeating now, when we are testing its truth: "The government for which you fought … that government will see to it that in your declining years you shall not suffer but shall be surrounded with all the comforts and all the blessings which a grateful nation can provide."
FAQs
Q: What is the West L.A. VA campus?
A: The West L.A. VA campus is a 600-acre property owned by the federal Veterans Affairs department.
Q: What is the controversy surrounding the campus?
A: The controversy surrounds the VA’s decision to lease the land to non-veteran interests, including a baseball stadium for UCLA and a sports complex for a private school, without following proper procedures.
Q: What is the outcome of the lawsuit?
A: A federal judge has ordered the VA to build enough housing for 2,500 veterans and to reverse the illegal leases.
Q: What is the significance of the campus’s history?
A: The campus has a rich history dating back to the Civil War era, when it was established as a national home for disabled and destitute veterans.
