The proposal to erect a joint Vietnamese-American war memorial has been controversial up to now because of where its supporters want to put it — in Veterans Memorial Park.

The American-Vietnamese War Memorial Alliance and its supporters say such a joint memorial would help heal wounds still festering from the war in Vietnam.

But many veterans have very publicly stated they want nothing at all to do with a memorial in the park commemorating Vietnamese veterans, flying a foreign flag where it would compete with the existing memorial to the armed forces of the United States.

Many have also publicly summoned bitter memories of their experiences with Vietnamese soldiers who they say turned on them and of the terrible treatment they as veterans received upon their homecomings after the war.

To ease tensions, the City is now talking about allowing the memorial in Les Gove Park.

David Schmidt, a Vietnam war veteran who is 100 percent disabled with PTSD, described his feelings about the memorial at a meeting of the Planning and Community Development Committee Monday.

“I can’t put into words how much this memorial means to me personally,” Schmidt said. “For me Vietnam is an everyday thing. I go to bed thinking about it, I wake up thinking about it. … And not just for me but for a lot of the Vietnamese, that monument is going to mean a lot. For me, I’ll have a place to go. Because when I came home from Vietnam, there were no bands or parades or anything, and not for any of the vets. We just kind of slid back into town quietly and left again.”

And he objected at first to the proposed change in location.

“… Beggars can’t be choosy, stick us over at Les Gove Park. But really as a Vietnam vet, why can’t I go to Memorial Park? Is my struggle, their struggle, any less? Les Gove Park is,” Schmidt continued, gesturing to show the distance, “and Memorial Park is there. There’s always people over at Memorial Park. … Sticking us over at Les Gove Park, it’s like it diminishes what we went through, what we’re going through today.”

Committee Chair Nancy Backus said that placement at Les Gove Park was intended as a compromise between those adamantly against having any type of a memorial and those adamantly for having a memorial.

“The intent was never to stick a memorial or a monument anywhere. The fact that it would be placed on public property, on park property, is of significance. I have a vision of having a monument park within Les Gove Community Campus. I would like to see a monument park, a larger area that would allow for future monuments.

Backus added that if in the future everybody who came forward with a like-size propposal for a monument in Memorial Park were to be granted their desires, there would be no gathering space left, no more opportunity to bring in the Vietnam traveling wall for Veterans Day celebrations.

“I don’t see in my mind that a placement in Les Gove Park would be of any less significance than anywhere else in one of our public parks,” Backus said.