WARRIOR WIND CHIMES – Welcome Home Montrose staff Emily Smith painted ceramic part of wind chimes at the Welcome Home Montrose Warrior Resource Center last week. (Photo by William Woody)

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VOLUNTEER Linda Granzow worked twine through spent round casings at the Welcome Home Montrose Warrior Resource Center last week. (Photo by William Woody)

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MONTROSE – Swaying in the breeze, under a small tree in the shade last Friday, a mixture of brass and stainless steel collided to create a soft tinkling. The sounds resembled a crystalline lullaby.  This “music” actually came from spent munitions casings, dog tags, and red, white and blue-painted ceramic hearts, all components of new, two-foot-long wind chimes. The chimes are hand-made to symbolize both the sacrifice of America's veterans, and how veterans preserve our freedoms – and Montrose residents can expect to hear and see more of them this weekend.
Volunteers and staff of the Welcome Home Montrose Warrior Resource Center, along with the local Altrusa International Club, have collaborated to create 100 of the wind chimes. They will disperse them around town on Memorial Day, Monday May 27.
The "Let Freedom Ring" project was designed to "generate awareness, recognition and gratitude" for military veterans, said volunteer Linda Granzow, who spent part of last Friday winding twine through holes that had been drilled through spent bullet casings.
The chimes are free for people to take and hang in recognition of someone who has served, or is currently serving, in the armed forces.
"I like the idea a lot. It's not something people have to buy. It's something we want to give as a thank you. We want them to be where people will see them and want to take them," Granzow said. She added that the Memorial Day event is a "kick off" for this project; eventually, many more chimes will be made and become available, though details about distribution or sales have not been finalized.
Three years' worth of spent brass casings, fired from 21-gun-salute volleys at local veterans' funerals, have been collected and donated towards the project. Otherwise, the casings would have been recycled, according to Vietnam veteran Gary Gratton, commander of Montrose's Disabled American Veterans Chapter 17.
"We can find the money for new rounds. I'd much rather give them to the people. To me it's personal, because I carried an M-14 in Vietnam. That's my memory of Vietnam, that type of bullet casing," Gratton said.
Gratton described the use of the brass in the chimes as a "symbol of belonging."
"That's how I think the veterans will look at it,” he said. Serving in the armed forces “Was about being a part of something that was bigger than me. That needs to be in the forefront of people's minds – that the military is keeping this country free.”
Gratton turned 21 in Vietnam. He served there from 1967 through 1968. It was the beginning of a 27-year career in the Marine Corps.
He said the local chapters of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, The American Legion, the DAV and the local U.S. Army National Guard unit work together to provide gravesite memorial services for veterans who have passed away.
It is estimated that 15 local veterans die each year, according to Gratton, who added that the generation from WWII is rapidly disappearing and deserves continued recognition.
The project is being supported with funds and volunteers from Altrusa Club, according to club member Joyce Loss.
Loss’s family members have participated in every U.S. armed conflict since WWI: her father was a Marine in WWI, her brother was a Marine during WWII, her husband was in Korea, and her son was in the Navy during Vietnam. Her great nephew was one of the Navy Seals killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan in 2011. She said the chimes project deserves the public’s support, and hopes the community will take time to remember and cherish these who have served.
The chimes will be hung in most public places around town. Details about the Let Freedom Ring project are published on a card attached to each chime.
For more information, contact the WRC at 970/765-2210, drop by the organization in person at 11 South Park Ave. in Montrose, or visit its web site at welcomehomemontrose.org.

wwoody@watchnewspaper.com
Twitter.com/williamwoodyCO

Of all the professional sports, Major League Baseball is the one sport that doesn’t need to be overwhelmed with instant-replay rules and breaks.

The debate over how much video replay baseball should have – which is a never-ending and ever-evolving debate – was reignited last week when a committee went before MLB owners and presented ideas about expanding instant replay. Right now, MLB only uses instant replay to review whether or not a batted ball is a home run. It was instituted in 2008, and for many it doesn’t go far enough.

The committee, led by Joe Torre, Tony La Russa and John Schuerholz, told the owners that the game would be improved if instant replay also covered fair or foul balls, and plays in which it was unclear if a ball was caught or trapped. In fact, the committee said instant replay could be expanded even more, perhaps by 2014, in other areas of the game not including balls and strikes. It seems the committee wants to use human judgment on balls and strikes but leave it to computers and televisions to call the rest of the game.

“We are considering much more than the trap play and fair-or-foul,” Torre, who is the vice president of baseball operations, told SI.com.

Nothing was actually decided at the presentation. Commissioner Bud Selig apparently liked the presentation but wasn’t ready to jump in quickly. The presentation did seem to signify, though, that some instant replay changes were almost a certainty for 2014.

Torre said he was “hopeful” something could be done but that he’s “not going to send something out there just to meet a deadline as opposed to trying to get the best possible way to do this.”

So let’s just say baseball is going to implement some new instant replay rules. If it doesn’t happen next year, I’d bet it will happen the following year. When it does happen, the question won’t be what is reviewable, but rather how will they review it? Will it be the umpires under a hood every 10 minutes or so reviewing TV footage of plays? Perhaps all reviews should be handled by a baseball control center in Cooperstown, New York, similar to what’s done in the National Hockey League. SI.com suggested something similar to the Hawk-Eye system used to make line calls in major tennis matches.

However baseball decides to review calls, the system must be quick. Baseball is already a slow game and it doesn’t need to be prolonged any longer. Imagine one of those games where you have one of those very, very slow-working pitchers on the mound. Then you have a batter who steps out of the batter’s box after every pitch to readjust his gloves. Then you get an inning early in the game, say the second inning, where the pitcher gets blasted for six runs. Then you have bullpen pitching changes every other inning throughout the rest of the game.

This type of game – we have all seen them – can be excruciatingly slow. Add a few reviews of close calls and it will be an even longer game. The game doesn’t need to be any slower.

Proponents of replay will tell you that calling the game accurately is more important than the speed of the game. I admit to agreeing with that notion, but will it cost the game fans? Of course, I’ll still end up watching those long, slow and replay-ridden games, but it doesn’t mean I am going to like it. 

I do, however, think there is a compromise here.

If the game is going to slow down even more, baseball has an opportunity to interact with the fans watching that game. Dan Patrick recently said baseball should have on hand an umpire guru like Fox Sports does with former NFL referee Mike Pereira. During Fox NFL games, they go to him to explain the rule and what the referees are looking at during the replay. He also gives a pretty good opinion on what should be the call.

Major League Baseball could do the same thing. While a play is under review, go to the MLB umpiring guru for his opinion on the matter. It’s not exactly riveting TV but it gives you something to think about.

I’d like to take it a step farther than that. If MLB is really going to add more instant replay, they should just go all-in and fire each and every umpire and replace them with technology. Use cameras, base sensors, an electronic sensor in each ball, and simply let computers make every call. When a ball flies over the fence, the sensor in the ball will know exactly where it went out and if it’s a home run or not, instantaneously. (I have always wanted this technology in a football to give us exact readings on touchdowns and first downs.) The sensor could tell immediately if it’s a foul ball or not. The foul pole would light up red if it’s foul and blue if it’s fair.

A sensor embedded in each base would be able to take a snapshot of when the runner steps on it, while the ball will know when it enters the glove. Close calls on the bases could be decided instantaneously.

Lets use the camera technology to call balls and strikes too. Every stadium has them; let’s make them official.

If baseball would just go all-computer technology, with no human umpires, it would be the sport on the cutting edge, full of flashing lights, lit-up bases and electronic strike-zone calls. It wouldn’t even resemble baseball any more.  Who cares, though, right? It would be 100-percent accurate and 100-percent no fun. Who doesn’t love a good umpire argument anyway?

I say let’s learn from all those Terminator movies we have been forced to sit through all these years and keep instant replay out of Major League Baseball, for now.

gjarvis@watchnewspapers.com

Twitter: @Gus_Jarvis