“Vandalism of Neglect” Two Years Later
I first published Vandalism of Neglect (Headstone Inscription Errors at the Central Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery at King) two years ago. I distributed only one copy; it was sent to then-Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs (WIDVA), Daniel Zimmerman. In the year following the publication, I heard absolutely nothing from the WIDVA. After receiving more than 2,200 pages of cemetery records, I updated my findings in Vandalism of Neglect and published a revised edition in May 2018. Soon after, a newspaper article about my work was published in Madison, WI.
In this article, the WIDVA spokeswoman Carla Vigue reportedly defended the WIDVA’s response to my report of the innumerable errors at the cemetery. As documented in the article:
“CWVMC staff continues to identify potential inscription irregularities on headstones in the cemeteries and have either been validated they don’t need to be replaced, replaced them, will replace them or are reviewing them for potential action,” said WDVA spokeswoman Carla Vigue. Since 2015, the department has replaced 44 markers, with another 21 scheduled for replacement, Vigue said, noting that the agency expects to replace more headstones based on its ongoing review.”
Her invocation of “2015” is important, because Ms Vigue is asserting that the WIDVA was correcting headstone inscription errors two years before I published Vandalism of Neglect.
If they started indentifying potential errors in 2015, then what were they doing before 2015? Installing erroneous headstones, that’s what.
I want to be clear, the WIDVA has identified errors on headstones for decades – as they arrive at the cemetery. For example, if a headstone arrives with an inscription that does not match the inscription that was ordered, it is often identified and a replacement is ordered. But not 100% of the time. However, errors that are created during the inscription ordering process, are not going to be identified when the headstone is received. If cemetery staff orders a headstone with the rank of “PVT2” and the headstone arrives with “PVT2” inscribed on it, the headstone will be installed – even though “PVT2” is incorrect. (The cemetery has ordered 9 headstones with “PVT2” in the inscription.)
So this is the systematic problem at CWVMC: erroneous headstone inscriptions are being ordered. And it has been a problem since the day the cemetery opened.
Here is a graph showing how many installed headstones have been replaced at CWVMC during the years 2015-2018:
It is painfully obvious that the WIDVA had not corrected any erroneous headstones in 2015, and that the first replacement was made almost 5 months after the May 2017 publication of Vandalism of Neglect. By Apr and May 2018, the WIDVA had dropped to a single replacement per month. After hearing from a newspaper reporter that a story was going to be published, the number of replacements jumped to 12 in Jun 2018. No more replacements were made through the end of 2018 or so far in 2019.
By my count (and using my criteria), the WIDVA has replaced 64 headstones that were listed in Vandalism of Neglect. The WIDVA will likely argue that they have “identified” dozens of additional erroneous headstones, but these headstones were identified upon receipt at the cemetery or very soon after, during 2015-2018. The reasons given for replacement were:
Arrived Damaged (n=41)
Below Standard (n=27)
Error on Inspection (n=17)
Family Requests (n=10)
New Military Info (n=1)
Damaged in Cemetery (n=6)
Reason Not Stated (n=6)
Many headstones identified in Vandalism of Neglect – those with egregious errors – have not been replaced. These will be discussed in a future post.