There are few military mottos more sacred than West Point's "Duty, Honor, Country."
Harve Bennett knew this when he and a group of veterans set out 10 years ago to beautify a little park at Wilshire and San Vicente boulevards in Westwood on the Veterans Affairs campus.
The producer of four "Star Trek" movies and TV's "The Six-Million Dollar Man" dubbed his effort "Beauty, Honor, Country," a play on the U.S. Military Academy's motto. And when the little park was completed in March, the group decided to inscribe those words on a concrete wall at the entrance.
That's when the trouble started.
Some veterans are now pressing to have the words removed, arguing that it's a sacrilege to change "duty" to "beauty."
"I took a look and I was stunned," said Vietnam War veteran Bob Rosebrock, 64. "You don't take such a code or creed and change it. You can't rewrite history. That's what's so troubling, to have something like that" inscribed on military property.
Rosebrock is now leading a charge against the inscription, trying to enlist support from the American Legion and even West Point itself. He said a handful of veterans went on a covert mission recently, taping the letter "D" over the first three letters of "Beauty." But it was removed.
"You would think they'd know better than to change the motto," said Frank Duddleston, assistant adjunct to the Los Angeles County Council of the American Legion.
Over the years the West Point motto has become the ideal for selfless military service. It was the basis for a speech Gen. Douglas MacArthur gave before West Point cadets in 1962 that honored the sacrifice of the soldier.
Bennett, 75, a Korean War veteran, and the other builders of the park said they respected the motto but didn't understand how anyone could find their play on words offensive.
He and the rest of the Veterans Park Conservancy board members, including a retired Air Force general and a retired Navy admiral, came up with the inscription idea when they began planning to beautify the VA campus a decade ago.
They collected enough money for the gateway project through funding from the Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as donations from philanthropists such as Eli Broad and Jerry Oppenheimer.
"Everyone thought it was terrific. The worst that could happen is someone thinking it were a bad pun," Bennett said. "We're not in the business of offending people. I would say this: We don't regret it. It's a clear statement of what we do -- beautify a national place of honor."
