Flags Replaced With Swastikas

[BlackMagicRose]

ORCAS ISLAND, Wash. (AP) - Vandals burned dozens of small American flags that decorated veterans' graves for Memorial Day and replaced many of them with hand-drawn swastikas, authorities said Monday.

Forty-six flag standards were found empty and another 33 flags were in charred tatters Sunday in the cemetery, authorities said. Swastikas drawn on paper appeared where 14 of the flags had been.

Members of the American Legion on this island off Washington's northwest coast replaced the burned flags with new ones Sunday afternoon.

The vandals struck again on Memorial Day after a guard left at dawn, the San Juan County sheriff's office said. This time, the vandals left 33 of the hand-drawn swastikas.

"This is not an act of free speech. This is a crime," Sheriff Bill Cumming said in a statement released Monday afternoon.

Investigators believe there's more than one culprit, based on the number of flags that were vandalized, Cumming said in a telephone interview. But authorities have no suspects, he said.

The sheriff said deputies were trying to lift fingerprints off what little physical evidence they were able to recover.
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All I have to say is WHAT IN THE BLUE FUCKING HELL IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE!!!! [img]mad.gif[/img] [img]mad.gif[/img] [img]mad.gif[/img] [img]mad.gif[/img] [img]mad.gif[/img]

[Lost in time]

some people can be very cruel

[BlackMagicRose]

That goes beyond cruel. They forget so easily that if it wasn't for those people who are veterans and such that they wouldn't have their freedom. [img]graemlins/grrr.gif[/img]

[Lost in time]

very true

[Father Dave]

ok i have a problem with this being called "a crime"...the same men and women who serve also protect our "rights". although i must say right up front- if i were present at this happening i would have gladly gone to jail being vocal to the malcontents who did this but if they did nothing more than what the article states- they did nothing more illegal than the ones who put the american flags there...they did not deface anything permanently as in spray painting a headstone.

it's america and defacing the flag is not a crime and if they did indeed, burn the flags- well that's the "correct" disposal of our standard. anyone who knows me knows i am a patriot and come from a very military family- i am not saying that what these morons did is right, good, or pleasing; what i am saying is that they do have a right to express themselves as much as those who placed the flags there.(i am not touching the "stealing someones property" issue here...not addressed in the article)
remember; freedom is not free...sometimes its' cost is tremendous.

jus my two cents.

[BlackMagicRose]

I think if they want to put that shit on their own familys grave more power to them but DON'T fucking do it to someone elses. If I were presernt at it I'd be kicking someones ass and taking names. [img]mad.gif[/img]

[phoenixrising79]

It's weird that this would come up since I am in the middle of a debate on freespeach with a friend on myspace. I saw a bumper sticker that kinda sums it up "if you can read this, thank a teacher. Since its in English, thank a soldier." These are very confusing times that we live in. We are in the middle of a war that noone believes in, and the soldiers are to blame. Granted all of us military people volunteered to join the military, but we didn't ask to be put in harms way in the interest of some fat old man's pocketbook, or a really dumb president. I support free speach all the way until the point where one's free speech infringes on anothers effort to exercise the same right. In the words of of the pledge of allegance "with liberty and justice for all."

<font color="#C0C0FF" size="1">[ June 01, 2007 04:17 AM: Message edited by: phoenixrising79 ]</font>

[Father Dave]

sometimes, in order to expose evil, one must tolerate anothers free speech.

i believe it's all or nothing. there is no such thing as "some" free speech.