So Sickening': What Vandals Have Done to Calif. Vietnam War Memorial to the Missing Is a Painful Sight

LOS ANGELES (TheBlaze/AP) -- A Vietnam War memorial in the Venice area of Los Angeles has been extensively defaced by graffiti.

Screengrab via KCAL-TV

The vandalism occurred sometime during the past week, KCAL/KCBS-TV reported.

The homespun memorial painted on a block-long wall on Pacific Avenue lists the names of American service members missing in action or otherwise unaccounted for in Southeast Asia.

The wall has been tagged previously, but the latest vandalism covers the bottom half of the memorial for much of its length.

More from KCAL-TV:

To George Francisco, vice president of the Venice Chamber of Commerce, it's not just graffiti.

"It's a desecration. I mean it's very simple. There's no sort of other way around it," said Francisco, who also runs a nonprofit called Veterans Foundation Inc.

"I've known the sacrifices these people made in an incredibly unpopular war. So to continue the mistreatment of Vietnam veterans is somewhat shocking, somewhat shocking and quite sad," Francisco said.

Painted by a Vietnam veteran and dedicated in 1992, it declares, "You are not forgotten" and states the number of missing as 2,273.

Another resident, Stewart Oscars, was equally distraught by the vandalism.

“This knocked me out. So sickening. Just sadness…think of all these people. They’re gone,” he said. “I remember the Vietnam war and how friends went to war, and bodies came back. Somehow, it has to be taught that this is not a good idea. This is actually stupid.”

According to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, the number of unaccounted-for Americans was listed at 2,646 in 1973. About half were those missing in action, and the others were those killed in action but the body was not recovered.

Since then, the remains of more than 1,000 American have been identified and returned and about 1,600 have still not been accounted for, although efforts continue.

---