LAFAYETTE, CALIF. — As they emerge from a tunnel cut beneath the Berkeley Hills, Bay Area Rapid Transit trains hauling eastbound commuters home from San Francisco enter a landscape of low hills and tight valleys, shaded by oaks and pines and filled with winding blocks of well-maintained houses.
It is a pleasant enough slice of California, this cluster of small, leafy communities in Contra Costa County, a place where youth sports dominate weekends and school fundraisers tend to succeed; where one of the latest civic initiatives was a vigorous campaign to persuade motorists to slow down.
A few miles down the line, the trains pull in to the elevated station that serves the town of Lafayette. It is at this point that passengers are confronted with a sight that seems jarringly out of place with the pastoral suburban tableau -- a hillside covered with white crosses.
There are thousands of them, each about 3 feet high, scattered from the sidewalk of Deer Hill Road to the brow of the low, broad hill. "In Memory of Our Troops," proclaims a large billboard, halfway up the hill.
In large block numerals, easily seen by BART passengers and motorists on Highway 24, which runs parallel to the tracks, the sign also keeps count of the number of U.S. service members who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
From the start "The Crosses of Lafayette," as the volunteers who maintain the display call it, has provoked a wide and evolving set of emotions.
"It is a shrine for some people, and it is a protest for other people," said Louise Clark, an 83-year-old widow and longtime Lafayette resident who allowed this arresting orchard to be planted on her land.
Two years ago, when the project began in earnest, there was outrage from those who saw the effort not only as an antiwar protest but as one that mocked the price paid by U.S. war dead. In one publicized incident, a former U.S. Marine tore down the sign: "My first reaction," she explained, "was 'What a disgrace to those who have sacrificed.' "
Over time, though, these counter-demonstrations died down. The crosses almost seem to have settled into the landscape, attracting a mix of curious passersby, peace activists, veterans of other wars -- some supportive, others upset -- and friends, families and war comrades of the fallen.
More than a few families have adopted individual crosses, inscribing on them the names of their deceased and decorating them with photographs, flowers, poems, stuffed animals and other trinkets.
