Defaced war veterans memorial restored for Memorial Day

BOSTON – A vandalized memorial to Vietnam War veterans in Boston has been restored ahead of the Memorial Day holiday.

The Boston Globe reports volunteers on Friday helped clean up the swastikas and other graffiti that had been scrawled on the memorial at the University of Massachusetts-Boston campus sometime Thursday. The volunteers also replaced American flags and plants that had adorned the stone monument.

Joseph Zinck, president of the Dorchester Vietnam Memorial Committee, says the memorial had been recently coated with a special anti-graffiti material that made it easier to clean. The memorial was also defaced in October. It bears the names of 80 fallen servicemen who hailed from the city’s Dorchester neighbourhood.

Massachusetts State Police are still searching for the vandal. They released a surveillance video image of the suspect.