“A gasp of disbelief, a sad shake of the head and a feeling of general disgust. That’s how San Marcos residents reacted Saturday morning at the sight of graffiti spray-painted on the still under construction Hays County Veterans Memorial.
Sometime overnight, someone used yellow spray paint to write ‘Kill Bush’ on a section of the memorial where names of local veterans are displayed on a sloping wall. The same slogan, along with others, was repeated on the back of the memorial.
‘It’s very disgusting,’ said Robert Guerrero, who served in Germany during the Vietnam era. ‘I have a lot of friends right there who gave their lives for this country,’ he added, pointing to the portion of the monument where the names of soldiers killed in action – which wasn’t vandalized – are displayed. ‘It’s just disgusting.’
Comments of some others who stopped by the memorial Saturday morning are unfit for publishing in a family newspaper.
Santiago Villarreal, a Vietnam veteran whose name is not yet displayed on the wall, said his initial feeling was one of sadness.
‘These are all veterans who did for their country, some who gave all,’ he said. ‘It’s just sad, sad that someone would vandalize something like this. Especially right now with all that’s happening in Iraq, it should be bringing more people together.’
‘It was someone without a conscience or a heart, it’s terrible,’ said his wife Rose. ‘They gave no thought of what these men and women go through – what they sacrifice. It’s too beautiful – the cost, the manpower. Whoever did this I pray that God will take care of it.'”