Now, I’d like to call this an isolated act of an isolated loon - but I really can’t. There has been quite a rash of these incidents recently - and they have an obvious antiwar theme. The Andover MA veterans memorial was painted with Edwin Starr lyrics. A Huey helicopter on display in Bay City, MI was hit with pink paintballs. And when the Medal of Honor Memorial in Indianapolis was vandalized in 2005, anti-Bush, anarchist and peace signs were painted, and glass broken.
So fuckhead of an anarchist wannabe, listen up. Nobody wants you to do this. Not your supposed friends or your romantic interests (human, animal, or imaginary.) And I doubt the cops would be impressed, or those bikers either, or those old guys in the car with a lifetime fucking VFW membership. And even people who wouldn’t want to kick your ass wouldn’t want you near them - because other people would be gunning for your ass.
Want to be a friendless asshole for a long time? Splash some oil on the memorial. Watch how many people come to your defense. Watch how many friends you really have.
I call bullshit on the vandalism claim. A picture of the damage can be found here. If you wanted to damage the wall you would use an acid and spread it over a much larger area. My guess is that this is some sort of blessing/consecration oil that unfortunately has stained the monument.
I don’t think so. They have been investigating this and cleaning this for ten days now. I think they have some idea of what it is.
And the fact that they took this long to call it vandalism indicates a few things, but mostly that they’re pretty sure it is.
If it later turns out not to be, so be it. Let’s just run with this as the best available theory - certainly there are other incidents around that indicate that this wouldn’t have come out of the blue.
If it’s vandalism, that is outrageous. I don’t understand why some people who disagree with our government’s policies cannot bring themselves to show some goddamn respect for the dead. However, I really do believe these idiots are in the minority. I’m as big a Bush-hating pacifist as you’ll ever find, but you can be damned sure if I ever run into an Iraq war veteran, I’m shaking his hand and thanking him for his service. Soldiers don’t get to choose how they serve, they just do it–and they do it selflessly and for a hell of lot less recognition than they deserve.
The police officer investigating has ruled in act of vandalism. That means very little. The police have to treat it as an act of vandalism until proven otherwise. If I were a police officer I would do the same thing. It’s a matter of due diligence.
On the other hand, I can look at the damage and can reasonably conclude that it was not an intentional act to damage the monument. The majority of the damage is to the walkway in font of the monument. The substance, described as light and oily, is not what anyone with a spark of intelligence would use to deface stone. If this was an act of vandalism it was done by the single most incompetent vandal in the history of the world.
It was a political gesture, man, because you know, this war in Iraq…it’s all about oil, man. Get it? Oil on the…because…huh. It seemed a lot more clever when we were all baked, man.
That’s incredibly disrespectful. I think the current war was a mistake, I think the Vietnam war was a mistake, but I don’t go spitting on the graves of people who were the central US victims of those mistakes and I don’t go pouring junk on memorials to them and what they had to go through. Yeesh.
Community Service, preferably at the VA Hospital. With a stop-loss order to keep them there over and over.
Whether it was vandalism or not, it’s still disrespectful as hell. My husband has 36 friends on the Wall, plus his cousin. it’s just not somewhere you mess with lightly.
I really hope they find whoever did it. If it wasn’t vandalism, fine, but they still should be prosecuted for damaging the memorial. You do not take a chance on defacing a national monument.
Look, I appreciate your skepticism. It doesn’t change the face that pink paint on a Huey is vandalism, “war, what is it good for” in paint is vandalism, and painted peace signs on a Medal of Honor memorial is vandalism. All of these are illustrative of my larger point, and if you really want me to, I can come up with about 25 other recent examples.
Which is why I went beyond calling this an isolated incident - rack up a few of them, and they aren’t isolated anymore.
IF this turns out to be an act of vandalism, that’s - golly! - four such incidents scattered across the nation over the past three years. Pattern, my ass.
Why would the police “have to treat it as an act of vandalism until proven otherwise”? To the contrary, until their investigation indicates commission of a crime, there is no basis to work under the assumption a crime was committed. So far from “meaning very little,” the fact that the police have investigated and concluded that this is an act of vandalism, is itself a pretty good (if not dispositive) indicator that it is an act of vandalism. Certainly it’s a better indicator than your WAG that it wasn’t, based solely on your inspection of a photo and your assumption that vandalism would look worse.
Then again, there was the single most heinous act that dishonored the memories and sacrifices of the honorees of every single one of the defaced monuments, plus the ones that haven’t been [physically] touched…
I have no idea what it was. An accident seems most likely. Somebody carried a can of oil (or whatever) and carelessly spilled it. So many tourists stream through that place that it seems possible that it seems possible that somebody was carrying something odd and fumbled it.
Maybe it was some attempt at pouring a libation for the fallen.
Maybe it was some crazy person who thought this magic concoction would prevent the ghosts of dead soldiers from stealing his teeth. Only the person(s) responsible know for sure, and even then, maybe not.
If it was an act of politically-motivated vandalism, it was so flawed in concept and execution, by the standards of vandalism , and so minimally damaging, that it’s not worth any outrage whatsoever.
And of course, if it was vandals, talking about it is what they want. So the proper response, at least in such a minor incident, is not to make a fuss.