Source: Anadolu Agency / Getty
The violence in Charlottesville, Virginia last August that resulted in the death of protester Heather Heyer and the injuries of many others shook the country to its core.
Despite originating in the historical streets of one Virginia city, the effects were felt across the nation, when Confederate sites and cemeteries were damaged across the country.
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As a result, the Department of Veterans Affairs details that the federal government employed private security guards to surveil at least eight Confederate cemeteries. Most of the locations are in the north and so far their efforts have been successful. None of the cemeteries have been vandalized.
The Associated Press reports:
Private security was needed “to ensure the safety of staff, property and visitors paying respect to those interred,” Jessica Schiefer, spokeswoman for the VA’s National Cemetery Administration, said in a statement. The agency “has a responsibility to protect the federal property it administers and will continue to monitor and assess the need for enhanced security going forward.” Most of the protected cemeteries are in the North, in places far removed from the Confederacy. Vast numbers of the buried soldiers were prisoners of war who were held nearby. Many succumbed to smallpox and other diseases. The cemetery monuments are typically simple and solemn, serving more to acknowledge the deceased than to celebrate the slaveholding nation they defended.
Records show that the VA has spent almost $3 million on cemetery security since August 2017.
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Federal Government Spent Millions On Security For Confederate Cemeteries was originally published on kissrichmond.com
