Anchorage Daily News

Vandals dumped a bucket of red paint on a downtown veterans memorial this morning, the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, in what police suspect was a symbolic act of protest. Passers-by spotted the blood-toned paint on the Anchorage Veterans Memorial, in the Delaney Park Strip off I Street, during the morning commute and reported it to police. The soldier's helmet was blood red, with the paint dripping down to the ground below.

"There's a movement across the country, since it's the fifth anniversary of the war, to protest," police Lt. Paul Honeman said.

Police say they are investigating the vandalism as a crime, and the responsible party could be facing charges of malicious destruction of property or felony criminal mischief, depending on what it cost to clean up the paint, he said.

"You have the right to express your opinion, but not if it destroys other people's property," Honeman said.

The statue was cleaned off by early afternoon, with only a hint of a reddish hue staining the greening copper shaped into a soldier holding a carbine. The blood-colored paint stained the snow beneath a placard that is part of the monument: "To those Alaska veterans whose eyes have seen what the protected will never know."

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