Memorials to veterans in a Los Angeles neighborhood and a town in Kentucky, as well as a Civil War veterans cemetery in Virginia, were damaged as the US prepares to mark Memorial Day today, officials said.
A Vietnam War memorial in the Venice area of Los Angeles has been extensively defaced by graffiti. The vandalism occurred sometime during the past week, KCAL/KCBS-TV reported. The homespun memorial painted on a block-long wall on Pacific Avenue lists the names of US service members missing in action or otherwise unaccounted for in Southeast Asia.
News of the vandalism came as another veterans-related memorial was reported damaged in Henderson, Kentucky.
Police said a Memorial Day cross display there that honors the names of 5,000 veterans of conflicts dating back to the American Revolutionary War has been damaged by a driver who plowed through the crosses early on Saturday.
In Virginia, the Petersburg National Battlefield has apparently been looted, the National Park Service said.
Numerous excavations were found at the Civil War battlefield last week, agency spokesman Jeffrey Olson said in a news release on Friday.
Petersburg National Battlefield is a 2,698 hectare park that marks where more than 1,000 Union and Confederate soldiers died fighting during the Siege of Petersburg 151 years ago.
In Los Angeles’ Venice neighborhood, the wall for missing veterans has been tagged previously, but the latest vandalism covers the bottom half of the memorial for much of its length.
Venice Chamber of Commerce vice president George Francisco said it is not just graffiti.
“It’s a desecration. I mean it’s very simple. There’s no sort of other way around it,” he said.
“I’ve known the sacrifices these people made in an incredibly unpopular war. So to continue the mistreatment of Vietnam veterans is somewhat shocking, somewhat shocking and quite sad,” Francisco said.
Painted by a Vietnam veteran and dedicated in 1992, it declares, “You are not forgotten” and states the number of missing as 2,273.
According to the US Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, the number of unaccounted-for Americans was listed at 2,646 in 1973. About half were those missing in action and the others were those killed in action, but the body was not recovered. Since then, the remains of more than 1,000 Americans have been identified and returned and about 1,600 have still not been accounted for, although efforts continue.
In Kentucky, Henderson Police Department spokesman Jennifer Richmond said the community was devastated and working frantically to repair and replace the crosses that were put on display for a Memorial Day ceremony in Central Park.
She said a 27-year-old local man drove straight through the cross display in the park, about 209km west of Louisville, just before 6am on Saturday, but investigators do not know if it was deliberate.
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