The council voted 4-1 for one of the two sites under consideration. A local veteran identified as Eugene Kaplan, a supporter of the rejected site who served in the Air Force from 1964-1970 (see here), ripped into Vice Mayor Tammy Kim as follows:
“You came from South Korea. How do you feel about the 36,574 Americans who died trying to save your country for freedom to allow you to come here and prevent it being overrun by North Koreans and Chinese?”
Kim, who was born in Seoul, shot back, “I am an American. This is my country.” It sure is.
See story and watch video here.
Kaplan’s loaded question had nothing to do with the cemetery. It was a personal attack that has no place in a city council meeting. Can we disagree without making it personal?
I might add that Kaplan isn’t one of those 36,574 American troops who died in the Korean War, and nobody elected him to speak for them. He didn’t even serve there. He was a little kid then. He’s merely venting his own personal feelings.
Sure, he’s mad about losing the vote. But taking a vote, and living with the results, is how we do things in this country. There were four votes against the cemetery site he wanted, but he expressed his disappointment by picking on one of those council members and making an issue of her ethnicity.
We thank him for his service. But being a veteran doesn’t give him a special license to be racist, uncivil, or rude in public meetings. You, sir, are an embarrassment to your community, our country, and your fellow veterans.
If you can’t do any better than that, cork it.
I read the article and there is nothing on what the board actually did or voted on. Of course if the board had simply looked back and found the board 10 years earlier had already designated a site and that voters had voted supporting a specific location in Irvine and the board just needed to support the prior decision then the meeting would have been unnecessary. This is a land grab by a corporation and also folks who do not want a veterans cemetery in their back yard,
The article isn’t about what the council voted on.