- Secretary Denis McDonough was forced to deny the ban after the leaked memo
- It was signed by undersecretary RimaAnn O. Nelson and shared on social media
The Department of Veteran Affairs has rescinded a memo banning the iconic J-V Day Times Square kiss photo from its buildings.
VA Secretary Denis McDonough was forced to deny the photo’s ban after a leaked memo signed by undersecretary RimaAnn O. Nelson began making the rounds online.
‘Let me be clear: This image is not banned from VA facilities – and we will keep it in VA facilities,’ McDonough said on Twitter.
When pressed by DailyMail.com, the VA admitted the memo was sent out late last month but had since been rescinded.
The memo instructed employees to ‘promptly remove’ the image and replace it with one deemed less offensive.
‘The photograph, which depicts a non-consensual act, is inconsistent with the VA’s no-tolerance policy towards sexual harassment and assault,’ the memo read.
Undersecretary RimaAnn O. Nelson penned the complaint
‘To foster a more trauma-informed environment that promotes the psychological safety of our employees and the veterans we serve, photographs depicting the ‘V-J Day in Times Square’ should be removed from all Veterans Health Administration facilities.’
Despite secretary McDonough’s announcement, many on social media slammed the VA for what they saw as another instance of woke policies.
One critic wrote: ‘Biden’s VA UnderSec hates men almost as much as she hates vets. She’s banning the V-J Day photo by because the sailor did not obtain consent before kissing the woman who said, ‘. It wasn’t a romantic event. It was just an event of thank God the war is over kind of thing.”
Another added: ‘They are trying to erase America’s history. What is so wrong with this photo?’
A third said: ‘This V-J Day kiss photo is American culture. To ban this is to ban our very own culture and our veterans morale.’
The iconic image, which captured New York’s celebration as the Second World War ended, has recently been seen in a a new light, with many arguing it portrays sexual assault because the soldier kissed the woman without consent.
It took decades before Greta Friedman and George Mendonsa, a sailor on leave, were identified as the couple locking lips in the picture taken by Life magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt on August 14, 1945.
Freidman’s son, Joshua, said his mother and Mendonsa became friends as they got older, despite Greta being kissed entirely out-of-the-blue on V-J Day all those years ago.
‘My mom always had an appreciation for a feminist viewpoint, and understood the premise that you don’t have a right to be intimate with a stranger on the street,’ Josh Friedman told the NYDN.
‘(But) she didn’t assign any bad motives to George in that circumstance, that situation, that time.’
He said they met again in the 1980s, and from that point his mother and the man she will be forever linked with would exchange Christmas cards.
There had been dozens of people falsely claim they were the couple who starred in the iconic image. However, a 2012 book, The Kissing Sailor: The Mystery Behind the Photo that Ended World War II, verified that Friedman and Mendonsa were the two in the shot.
