Sometime Thursday afternoon, someone walked up to the National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., sprayed "Clean Hands Dirty $" in red graffiti across the stone, and dumped soap into the fountain. By 4 p.m., U.S. Park Police and the National Guard had blockaded the site.
The memorial honors over 400,000 Americans who died in the Second World War.
Interior Department Spokesman Cody Sargent called it "disgusting vandalism from deranged losers" — a description that, for a government spokesman, showed unusual and welcome clarity.
The department's official statement went further: "The World War II Memorial is a sacred place to honor the service of our members of the Armed Forces and the over 400,000 Americans who gave the ultimate sacrifice in WWII. The vandalism that occurred is an utter disgrace and will not be tolerated." They added: "Our U.S. Park Police are on the scene and the investigation is ongoing. The public should know we will find the person responsible for this disgusting act."
The memorial sits on the National Mall between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. President George W. Bush dedicated it in 2004. Its Freedom Wall holds 4,048 gold stars — each one representing 100 American military deaths. Beneath the stars, an inscription reads: "Here we mark the price of freedom."
That's what got vandalized. Not a statue of a politician. A wall of gold stars representing the dead.
Ahmed Cisse, a D.C. resident who saw the aftermath, told reporters, "It's kind of shocking for us to see that." A female tourist at the scene put it more plainly: "It's really sad. It's really sad to see that we can't even experience it."
This wasn't an isolated incident. Back in June, the same memorial was hit with "86 47" graffiti — a reference to removing the 47th president. So we're looking at a pattern now. The World War II Memorial — not a campaign office, not a government building, but a place built to honor men who stormed beaches and never came home — has become a repeat target for people whose political convictions extend exactly as far as a spray can.
"Clean Hands Dirty $" is the kind of slogan that sounds profound at 2 a.m. in a freshman dorm and looks like what it is in the light of day: incoherent rage pointed at the nearest sacred thing. The memorial doesn't make policy. It doesn't appropriate funds. It holds gold stars for the dead.
Thankfully DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro announced on Friday that a suspect had been arrested and charged for the vandalism. Melissa L. Farris, 41, of Elizabethtown, Ky., was charged with depredation against property and destruction of veterans’ memorials. Each count carries a sentence of up to ten years in prison.
“Vandalizing our World War II Memorial is a despicable attack on a sacred monument honoring the Americans who fought and died for our freedom. Those Americans include my father and grandfather,” Pirro wrote.
Farris posted several pictures and messages to social media this week in which she admitted to "damaging" the memorial. In one of the videos she stated, “I am cognitively aware and executively (sic) of the choices I am making and I am doing so to push my whistleblower case into the courtroom."
Four thousand forty-eight stars. Each one is a hundred families who got a knock on the door. The vandal spray-painted a slogan over them that won't outlast the cleaning crew.
The stars will.
