Vandals at the Wall

The Vandals are upon us again, and I don’t mean the athletes from Moscow either. Real ones this time, honest to Gawd barbarians that have no respect for other people, civilized behavior, or much of anything else except their own personal desires. They can’t yowl loud enough to become rock music stars, they’re not pretty enough to be movie stars, and they aren’t smart enough to be crooked politicians. So instead, they find other means to draw attention to themselves, in this case defacing public memorials.

Friday, the 7th of September, a “light, oily substance” was splattered on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall panels and paving stones in an act of vandalism. The vandals appear to have walked along the wall while squirting an oil based substance on the lower sections of the panels. The liquid discolored the polished surface of the stone memorial and was absorbed into the porous parts of the stone where the names of our fallen warriors are etched into the stone. Many names have become unreadable due to the absorption of the fluid.

At the same time, Washington was deeply involved with the reports by Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, which the Democratic leadership had already condemned as more “Bush lies” well before anything was said. At the same time, ANSWER and a number of other anti-war groups including moveon.org were planning massive anti-war demonstrations in Washington, events that seem entirely too coincidental to assume that Friday’s discovery was an act of vandalism unconnected with the demonstrations. Jan Scruggs, who is the founder and president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund said that there is a belief that the recent vandalism was motivated by "MoveOn.org type of people" but he hopes that no one is accusing them at this point. “I just can’t image that this was an organized activity or a conspiracy involving more than one deranged person, or that anyone would have done this to score political points for their cause -- it would have just the opposite effect.”

Col. Harry G. Riley (US Army, Ret.) who is heading up the “Eagles” veterans group said that “When you see there is some type of a substance on the wall down and on the base for 50 to 60 feet, its pretty hard for me to rationalize how that could be anything other than purposeful…” “Who ever did this, if they were trying to enrage the Vietnam Veterans, they did.” In response some veterans groups planned to parallel the anti-war demonstrations with lines of volunteers blocking access to the Vietnam Wall and other memorials they believe may be targeted for defacement. Col. Riley’s right you know, this wanton act of vandalism has certainly infuriated this Vietnam vet, and not in a manner that would meet with the approval of the anti-war crowd!

The week of anti-war events is intended to trigger a nationwide demonstration against the war in Iraq, and is set to begin Saturday with a 1,000-person “die-in” at the U.S. Capitol. The die-in is planned to be the high point of a march and rally. Organizers hope the event will spur people in the antiwar movement to move from protesting to performing acts of civil disobedience that “get in the way of the war machine”. For some reason this is beginning to smell like the mess we found ourselves facing in the 1960’s, where sensless rioting and wanton destruction became a common fact of American life.

Certainly anti-war protests are nothing new in American history, with some protests becoming rather bloody riots in both New York and Baltimore during our Civil War. Unlike places like Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Red China, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union, protesting is the right of all American citizens. However, I see a distinct difference between protesting the war in Iraq, and purely destructive vandalism!

That someone would deface this place is beyond me. They dishonor the dead, they dishonor those that came home, having left too many of their friends-not to mention part of themselves-somewhere in Vietnam. They also dishonor the families of the dead. For what? So they could make some sort of juvenile statement? Whatever statement they were trying to make was made in cowardice. While I despise those idiots who took it upon themselves to make asses of themselves during the Congressional Testimonies, at least they had the nerve to do so in public and risk arrest. The slime that defaced the wall made their statement in fear, and in a city full of monuments with which to make a bad decision, they made the worst decision possible. That place is hallowed ground to so many. Many more will now come to defend it, because it is as much theirs as it is anyone else’s. My advice to the anti war crowd: Stay away from The Wall. It may belong to all of us, but trust me when I tell you that right now, you will not be welcome there. You will now be met by a group of people that will be justifiably angry.

So far I’ve been fairly quiet about this savage act because I haven’t been able to say anything that wouldn’t be considered a criminal act, to whit, advocating vigilanty justice. To say that I am mad as hell doesn’t even begin to explain the rage that I feel about this. I’ll join my voice with many veterans in saying that those who defaced the wall should be hunted down, drawn and quartered. Their heads should be posted on pikes on one side of the wall, and the rest of them scattered to the four corners of America as a warning to others who would do the same. There is no reasoning with the kind of people who deface war memorials to further their warped cause; they can only be likened to insane people who are possessed by a rage that knows no bounds. It takes a really sick individual with no moral conscience whatsoever to violate the rights of the dead.

The young men and women whose names cover the wall gave their lives for their country in Vietnam. They did not run away from their obligations as American citizens, they did not hide behind some conveniently assumed morality, they did not mindlessly parrot the lies of those who would destroy this nation. Those young people didn’t start the war in Vietnam, many didn’t agree with that war, and certainly they weren’t here to start the war in Iraq. They were simply young Americans, who, as American soldiers have throughout our history and in accordance with our law, went where their country sent them… and there - like the three hundred Spartans - they died, doing their duty.