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Tribute to fallen Marines will stay
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Published: August 12, 2008
A monument to Marines who died in a 1983 terrorist attack in Beirut will apparently stay put in downtown Mooresville.
"That monument will not be moved until the McNeely family supports it being moved," said Mac Herring, a Mooresville town commissioner who also serves as the board representative on the Mooresville Beautification Committee.
His statement capped 10 days of controversy and public criticism surrounding the committee's comment last week that the monument would likely be moved from John Franklin Moore Memorial Park on South Main Street to a new park at the War Memorial building.
The John Franklin Moore Park, which is being renovated, has been home to the monument for 23 years.
The monument was erected to honor 21 North Carolina-based U.S. Marines, including Lance Cpl. Timothy McNeely of Mooresville, who died in the attack.
McNeely's sister, Vickie Brawley, said that her family had not been contacted before the committee's decision and has several reservations about moving the monument.
"Why change something that's that set in stone?" Brawley said in July.
On Wednesday, Herring said that the committee's prior decision to move the monument was being revoked and it would remain at John Franklin Moore Park.
"The intent has always been to get them to sign off on it," Herring said of the McNeely family, who was adamantly against moving the memorial. "It was never intended to be done without the consent of the McNeelys."
That consent will never come, Brawley said.
"Not in my lifetime or my mom's or my children's," she said Thursday.
She is pleased that the committee changed course.
"I feel that the community stepped up and voiced their opinions, and I think it's wonderful," Brawley said.
n Melinda Skutnick is a
reporter for the Mooresville
Tribune.
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