Thursday, July 2, 2015

My attitude has always been that if you catch a graveyard vandal, sentence him to be buried -- in the fullness of time -- in an unmarked grave.

Prosecutors: Cemetery worker used veterans' headstones as flooring

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Didn't an SS commander do something similar in a Jewish ghetto in the city (I believe) of Lvov? Nothing disrespects the dead more than this. Which tells me that this cretin has no respect for life either...A catholic priest giving a sermon at my nephews baptism a couple of years back said "evil is having a field day". Afterwards I shook his hand and said "yes, it is"..

Allen said...

the VA is supposed to replace veterans headstones at regular intervals. there is no requirement to destroy the old headstone.

find out if these are old headstones, and the new ones are in place. if so, then what's the problem?

Maxwell said...

From reading the comments, it appears the guy was using headstones that were to be destroyed because the family had opted for a nicer grave marker than the government-provided one, or the stone was somehow damaged or otherwise unused. I'm of two minds about this...on one hand, I abhor the destruction/waste of nearly any good-quality, usable item. On the other, it WAS theft of government property, and a shade on the creepy and disrespectful side (they appeared to be placed with the name down, and no one's marker should be used as paving, unused or not.)

So the guy's actions were criminal, but maybe (hopefully) not as abominable as might appear from the headlines. I certainly wouldn't equate such a re-purposing as on par with punks spray-painting or destroying stones in a graveyard.

And yes, I am a veteran.