Special Operations Memorial at MacDill Air Force Base Vandalized with Spray Paint
Military.com | By Thomas Novelly
Published February 06, 2025 at 4:34pm ET
A memorial to fallen special operations service members located inside MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, has been vandalized with pink spray paint and is temporarily closed off to installation patrons as expensive cleanup efforts are underway.
The Special Operations Memorial, which is inside MacDill's gates, was likely vandalized sometime Tuesday evening, Troy Daland, the president of the memorial foundation's board of directors, told Mlitary.com.
Images of the scene Thursday provided to Military.com showed a working dog statue covered in pink spray paint and the main statue of a service member was covered in a blue tarp. Since-deleted pictures of the scene shared briefly on social media showed a giant pink-colored, spray-painted X on the pavers of the memorial, as well as seemingly pink confetti and paper sprinkled around the memorial. It was covered with police tape on Thursday.
"It's tragic," Daland, a retired senior master sergeant who was a former Air Force Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape specialist, told Military.com in an interview Thursday. "This is not government funded. This is all private citizens donating to this memorial."
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2025/02/06/special-operations-memorial-macdill-air-force-base-vandalized-spray-paint.html
