Why I have new faith in GNMP

A friend of mine (and you know who you are) and myself adopted a position on the battlefield. We did this a few years ago and twice a year (spring and fall) we go to our position and clean it up. Our job includes clearing the path and then the actual area around our monument. I love doing this. For so many years, the park at Gettysburg has given us so much and this is just our little way of giving back to the park.

Well, today was the day that we cleaned our position. It had rained for many days prior to our clean up and the ground was more swampy than anything. But we did our best and made the path as close to walkable as possible. But we came across something that really upset us.

First, let me explain that the Park has a new coordinator for the Adopt A Position program. This was the first time that we met him and after what happened today, I hope he is with the program for a very, very long time! My friend, her husband, and myself met at the appointed time, but the park was about 15 minutes late getting there. We were a little annoyed until we found out why. They wanted to spend a little time with each of the AAP participants....getting to know them and see the monuments and just understanding what we do in general. I like that. He really cares about who we are and what we do. So they were late, because they were with another group prior to us....I wasn't so annoyed any more.

Well, we all walked down to our position. My friend's husband went down to the monument with the park personnel while my friend and I started at the beginning of the path. Next thing we know, we can see them throwing HUGE branches off into the woods. What was going on? So off we went. What we saw is what REALLY made me mad. There are power lines in the area and the electric company went through the area clearing trees from the lines.....and the monument was completely surrounded by huge branches....no, not branches, HUGE limbs of trees. We were all soooooo shocked by what we saw. There was no way that we were going to get that monument cleaned up.

So the park personnel went up to our cars and called Law Enforcement. L.E. showed up and we showed them what happened. That's when we noticed that the monument itself had been damaged. There were huge chunks of granite broken off the top of it....like branches fell on it and broke pieces off. It was quite obvious that the electric company did this. There were a total of six of us down there....getting madder and madder. Because the electric lines run through the park, they sort of have right of way, but the park should have been notified that this was going to happened. They didn't know. They didn't clean up their mess at all. There's no way that we can clean it up...they don't allow us to use chain saws. They damaged a monument and STILL didn't tell the park.

The Coordinator of the AAP program was visibly upset. He told us that these men died here and that they need to be remembered and not treated like this. As mad as I was about this, I was shocked to hear him say this. This is a man who TRULY understands what these monuments are all about. After talking to him for about half an hour, I walked away from our day thinking "this park is in good hands".

So often I see and hear some of the park employees treating the park as a "job". This gentleman sees it as a labor of love. He understands. After I got home, I realized that even though we need to keep a close eye on what is happening in the park, there are some park personnel who truly care and they have it all under control. I, for one, am extremely happy.

We are going to be getting updates about the clean up down there and I will let you know just what is happening. The gentleman in charge of the upkeep of the monuments is going to take a look at it in the next couple of days. Then we should have a better understanding of what all is going to happen down there. I hope that the electric company (who is going to be contacted) has the decency to clean up their mess. This is truly a tragedy for the veterans who placed that monument there for generations to remember their fallen comrades.

But despite all this, I feel so much better about the future of the park. We truly are in good hands.