US Veteran Slams Vandalization of WWII Memorial in Washington Amid Protests
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th June, 2020) Vandalizing a World War II memorial in the US capital during protests after the death of African American man George Floyd was an obnoxious act especially given the progress blacks have made in the military, war veteran Frank Cohn told Sputnik.
Unknown protesters defaced the memorial and some other landmarks in the nation's capital downtown on Sunday. "Do black vets count?," they wrote on the WWII monument.
"I was very concerned about that, so I checked with the people who care for the memorial and was advised that it was just graffiti, which was easily cleaned off.� So it seems it was probably just a couple of stupid kids who get a kick in doing something obnoxious," Cohn said. "I doubt that it had any greater meaning and I hope that I am correct."
Protests against police brutality and racism erupted throughout the United States following the death of an African American man, George Floyd, in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25.
A retired US Army colonel, Cohn, 94, participated in the April 25, 1945 meeting of the US and Soviet troops on the Elbe River in Germany. The meeting was a key milestone in the process of ending World War II and took place as US troops advanced from the west and Soviet troops advanced from the east thus splitting Nazi Germany in two.
Veteran acknowledged that the race problem is a very complicated for the US.
"Our black minority has never been able to achieve equality," he said.
Meanwhile, the retired colonel expressed confidence that in the last 40 years the discrimination in the US military has been pretty much removed.
"The black population in the military has reached the highest ranks within the officers Corps and on the enlisted level, the non-commissioned officers are equally well represented," he added.
Born in Germany in 1925, Cohn had to escape the country with his parents in 1938, trying to guard themselves against Nazi violence.
Cohn did not draw parallels between Jewish persecution in Hitler Germany and racial segregation in the US.
"The big difference remains the law," the veteran said. "In Nazi times, the law demanded discrimination and therefore things kept getting worse and worse which ultimately led to the Holocaust. Here the law is set against discrimination. It may not work fast enough, but ultimately it will attack the problem and provide justice."
Speaking of Floyd's killing, Cohn noted that all police officers involved in the tragic incident have already been fired and charged.
"This will again bring us one step closer to the law on the part of police organizations," he said.
A video of Floyd's arrest showed a white police officer pressing his neck for almost nine minutes as the detainee was kept handcuffed laying on his stomach, repeatedly saying that he could not breathe. Floyd died shortly thereafter. However, the protests soon turned into riots complete with violence against officers and civilians as well as acts of property destruction.