Star comment: Heartless attack on memorial
Unless and until the person or persons who trashed a remembrance garden in Telford are caught, we can only speculate on what was going through their minds, or if they realised the significance of that garden.
Over a period of almost 10 years, it has been created little by little as a place for peaceful reflection by Ken and Maddie Davies.
Their son, Damian, was 27 when he was killed by a suicide bomber in Helmand Province in December 2008. His killer was only 13.
Damian, who was serving in the Royal Marines, left a widow, Joanne, and an 18-month-old son. The funeral was held on Christmas Eve.
The garden has been desecrated. Flowers were trampled, and statues were stolen. And in a cruel twist, somebody emptied their plastic recycling all over it. It was as if they wanted to increase the pain.
This act of vandalism shows no respect to the fallen marine, a local lad who died in the service of his country. And it shows no compassion to the bereaved who honour and cherish his memory.
Joanne says Damian’s parents tend to shy away from big acts of remembrance and that the garden was the quiet place where they could go.
In war there are those who fight at the front, and there are those back home who worry. Just before Christmas, Damian’s loved ones had the worst sort of news.
And we carry today a series of pictures which evoke a different conflict from decades beforehand. The images taken by an American officer serving at a hospital near Whitchurch have the immediacy of full colour – rare in the Second World War.
Different times, different context, but a common thread of service for country in time of war. This hospital at Iscoyd Park treated US servicemen far from home injured in the maelstrom of the Normandy campaign. Later it was to treat German prisoners-of-war with humanity and compassion.
To the vandals, we ask: What do you have to offer? What have you done, or have ever done, to be proud of? Will you, in future years, tell your grandchildren of the time that you smashed up the remembrance garden of a fallen hero, causing anguish among his loved ones?
Some good has come out of the bad. People have been so outraged about what has happened that they have come forward to offer to restore the memorial garden to how it was. Maybe the vandals will have a pang of conscience and volunteer to make amends. But probably not. That would take courage.
