A war memorial in a popular Windsor park needs repairs after it was badly damaged by vandals.
The Freemasons War Memorial has stood in Malden Park for the past 22 years, but sometime before last Saturday morning, vandals removed the tablet from its base, rolled it down the hill, and threw it in a pond.
It's heartbreaking for Reverand Gene Lotz, a local author and historian, who was on the committee that unveiled the monument more than two decades ago.
"I was going to go with this brother and try and get it out of the pond and get it back onto the base, but it's too heavy," he said. "It's a couple of hundred pounds."
A City of Windsor crew pulled the tablet out of the pond and took it away.
Senior Manager of Communications and Customer Service Jason Moore told WindsorNewsToday the city plans to restore it but was unsure how much repairs would cost.
Civilian Veteran Advocate Andrea Grimes said Lotz is working with the city to restore the monument.
"My heart really goes out to these veterans who made the supreme sacrifice," said Lotz, who has written a book about the lives of local veterans. "To see this happen to something that we're trying to remember them by -- you know the saying, 'Lest we forget.' That's important."
For Lotz, it's not important who did it, but he believes it was the work of more than one person.
"It weighs a tonne. It's not something that the wind would blow over and blow it down the hill," he said. "It had to be manhandled, smashed and broken away from the base, picked up, walked a couple of hundred feet, and thrown in the pond."
Lotz has dedicated his life to honouring the memory of veterans, and his book contains the biographies of 1,300 local soldiers who lost their lives.
To those responsible for the damage, Lotz had one thing to say.
"Read my book, and maybe then you'll understand what you've done."
