Two days prior to the U.S. Memorial Day (May 25), Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on the 23rd to take part in a cleanup alongside volunteers. Although it rained all day, the two officials paid tribute to fallen soldiers while working in the wet weather. Last year, before Memorial Day, the secretaries received considerable media coverage for cleaning the Korean War Veterans Memorial, a representation of the U.S.-ROK alliance.
Hegseth and Collins, along with volunteers, used mops and buckets to clean the memorial’s surfaces. The Wall, which refers to the memorial’s black granite panels, features the names of about 58,000 American military personnel who died or went missing during the Vietnam War. Hegseth said, “There’s no better way to start the Memorial Day holiday than by doing a major cleanup. We will always honor those who responded to the call during the Vietnam War.” Collins added, “Cleaning is our way of remembering the sacrifices made by our veterans. Everything we have today is due to the blood they spilled.”
On Memorial Day, which falls on May 25, the Korean War Veterans Memorial Foundation (KWVMF) will hold a special ceremony at the Korean War Veterans Memorial at 2 p.m. The memorial includes the ’19 Soldiers Statue,’ a stainless-steel artwork by Frank Gaylord from 1995, and the ‘Wall of Remembrance,’ unveiled in 2022, that lists the names of 43,000 U.S. and South Korean soldiers who died during the Korean War, along with the images of 2,400 veterans. Last year, while maintaining the memorial’s statues and monuments, Hegseth stated, “The cleaning process was a chance to teach children about the Korean War, the strategic situation at the time, its significance, the number of sacrifices made, and why we are still present in Korea.”
jasdooit 
Leave a comment