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Navy to Modify Barracks Complex That Resembles a Swastika From Air

Wednesday, September 26, 2007



CORONADO, Calif. —



The Navy will spend as much as $600,000 to modify a 40-year-old barracks complex that resembles a swastika from the air, a gaffe that went largely unnoticed before satellite images became easily accessible on the Internet. The Navy said officials noted the buildings' shape after the groundbreaking in 1967 but decided against changing it at the time because it wasn't obvious from the ground. Aerial photos made available on Google Earth in recent years have since revealed the buildings' shape to a wide audience.

The Navy approved the money to change the walkways, landscaping and rooftop solar panels of the four L-shaped barracks, used by members of the Naval Construction Force at the Navy's amphibious base at Coronado, near San Diego.

"We don't want to be associated with something as symbolic and hateful as a swastika," Scott Sutherland, deputy public affairs officer for Navy Region Southwest, told the Los Angeles Times.

Online commentators remarked widely about the buildings' resemblance to the Nazi symbol.

Dave vonKleist, host of "The Power Hour," a Missouri-based radio-talk show, said he wrote to military officials calling for action.

"I'm concerned about symbolism," he said. "This is not the type of message America needs to be sending to the world."

The Navy decided to alter the buildings' shape following requests this year by Anti-Defamation League regional director Morris Casuto and U.S. Rep. Susan Davis.

"I don't ascribe any intentionally evil motives to this," Casuto said of the design. "It just happened. The Navy has been very good about recognizing the problem. The issue is over."

"It just happened. The Navy has been very good about recognizing the problem.


I'm sorry, but this made me Laugh! Very Good???? It took them 40 years! :wah:

Why not just paint a camouflaging pattern on the roof to disguise it?

Duh, didnt anyone care when they were looking at the blueprints 40 years ago, seriously, now all that money to change it, all I can say is "DUH"

thanks Terri, again another great post.

Fibonacci;701119 wrote: I'm sorry, but this made me Laugh! Very Good???? It took them 40 years! :wah:


:wah:

This one's on Cedar Lake Rd Decatur, AL 35603



This is in Munich, of all places.

!!!

Okay now that's not just a coincidence. There has to be something behind that, there just has to be.

Indian Princess;701280 wrote: Duh, didnt anyone care when they were looking at the blueprints 40 years ago, seriously, now all that money to change it, all I can say is "DUH"

thanks Terri, again another great post.


Obviously the architects must have designed it that way and the builders must have known - you cannot lay out the foundations without seeing the pattern.

Neither can they have been unaware of the symbology, therefore, it was deliberate.

Uncle Kram;701279 wrote: Why not just paint a camouflaging pattern on the roof to disguise it?


Maybe that's what they'll do. Six hundred thousand dollars really isn't a lot of money for such a job.

About twenty years ago, a stand of trees planted in a German forest in the shape of a swastika were cut down. They were planted in the 1930s.