You can never have too many stories about war memorials on your blog.

This is the 5th anniversary of the war in Iraq. To commemorate the occasion Tuesday night, a group of vandals defaced a WWII veterans’ memorial statue in downtown Anchorage by dumping red paint on it.

While the citizens of the US have every right to free expression of their opinion about war - and in fact our soldiers fight to protect such freedoms - that liberty doesn’t extend to the damage or destruction of property.

Ironically, the inscription on this memorial reads “To those Alaska veterans whose eyes have seen what the protected will never know.”

Maybe the paint-happy hooligans need to go spend some time on the front lines defending their ‘freedom of speech’.

In 1943, during World War II, foreign troops took control of US soil for the first and only time since the war of 1812. Japanese troops occupied the remote Alaskan islands of Attu and Kiska – map below.

The Battle of Attu in May of 1943, was by all accounts bloody and gruesome. The Anchorage Daily News reports:

On May 29, 1943, Col. Yasuyo Yamasaki led a desperate middle-of-the-night attack on the Americans at Engineer Hill. [Survivor Bill] Jones lay with multiple wounds in a medical tent while Japanese soldiers shot, bayonetted and even burned alive nearly everyone around him. The only reason he survived, he says, is that a body at the door of his tent gave the impression all were dead inside.

When the banzai attack failed, and Yamasaki lay dead, some 500 men, what was left of nearly 3,000 Japanese invaders, bowed to the bushido code of “death before dishonor:” They held hand grenades to their chests and pulled the pins.

In in 1987, with the approval of the US Department of the Interior, the Japanese government placed a World War II memorial there to fallen troops. It’s one of many the Japanese placed at major battle sites around the Pacific theater. (Photo by Kurt Fredrickson of the USCG)

The memorial’s inscription reads:

In memory of all those who sacrificed their lives in the islands and seas of the North Pacific during World War II and in dedication to world peace.

While the memorial is ostensibly there to honor the dead from both sides of the conflict, many American soldiers feel the Japanese monument on American soil is a betrayal of what they fought for and want it removed.

The controversy over this war memorial remains low-key, as the island of Attu is so remote that the monument is very rarely seen. Attu is uninhabited except for a tiny Coast Guard Loran station.

The debate over the memorial received some national exposure when Los Angeles filmmaker Tom Putnam released his 2006 documentary, “Red White Black & Blue,” documenting this little-known battle. The monument is pictured at in the film, as well as details on Jones’ efforts to have it removed, generating some publicity and support for his cause.

Survivors of the battle are also upset by the lack of any substantial American monument on the island. Jones and a few other veterans personally commissioned a bronze plaque, which was mounted on a granite block near the Coast Guard airstrip. The inscription, written by him, reads:

This plaque is inscribed and placed here by those who fought by our side or served in the defense of this island during World War II to honor the boys — men who prematurely gave their lives during the Battle of Attu and in remembrance of the mothers, fathers, wives, children, and sweethearts whose lives were forever changed due to their loss.

Should the US permit this monument on American soil, site of Japanese occupation and a gruesome and brutal battle? I’m not a military veteran, so my perspective isn’t as keenly focused as that of a soldier.

For what my opinion is worth, I think a monument to peace – and solely to peace – might be appropriate, no matter which government commissioned it. A monument to the war dead placed by our attackers is a mockery and a travesty. It should not have been permitted, and should be removed.