President Barak Obama continues to block the American, especially war veterans, access to open air memorial that were paid by private donations. No other president has done this during the last 14 government shutdowns.
Via William Jacobson, NBC’s affiliate in Washington, D.C. reports that police ordered tourists and Vietnam war veterans who were visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall to leave the memorial at one point on Friday.
After one group of veterans went around the barricade, “the park ranger told them the wall was closed,” NBC’s Mark Seagraves reported. “Later another group of vets showed up and moved the barricades. At that point, the memorial filled with vets and tourists. That’s when police came and moved everyone out.”
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall is a black granite outdoor wall on which the names of the 58,272 service members who died or were unaccounted for during the Vietnam war are inscribed.
It takes more manpower and costs the government more money to close down an outdoor wall than to let people walk past it and pay their respects.
The Obama administration has been very selective in devoting resources to shutting down memorials.