'Shameful. It's a disgrace.' O.C. Vietnam vets memorial overshadowed by corruption, shoddy work

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It was announced with great fanfare and hope: a memorial in the center of Orange County to honor veterans of the Vietnam War.But two years and more than $1 million later, the memorial stands as an unlikely symbol of corruption and broken promises.The memorial project is plagued by shoddy construction and, according to Orange County Supt.Janet Nguyen, mired in fraud.Standing in front of the memorial, which has already begun to show signs of cracking, Nguyen said last week that the structure should be torn down and a new memorial built to honor Vietnam veterans.

“It is shameful.It is a disgrace,” Nguyen said during a Nov.

10 news conference at the memorial in Fountain Valley’s Mile Square Park.“We’re going to replace it.

We gotta do it right because we owe it to these veterans.”Aspirations for the project were initially high, with supporters saying it would be reminiscent of the memorial in the nation’s capital.But its construction is rooted in scandal.Former Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do was sentenced to five years in federal prison in June after taking more than $550,000 in bribes and steering millions of dollars in contracts and federal pandemic funds to a nonprofit that, in turn, funneled the money to his two daughters.In September 2023, Do allocated $1 million in taxpayer money from his discretionary fund to that nonprofit, the Viet America Society, where one of his daughters was an executive.

The stated goal was to design and construct a memorial to honor Orange County’s Vietnam War veterans.In a video announcing construction of the memorial at the park, Do described it as a smaller version of the Washington, D.C., Vietnam Veterans Memorial that would also recognize South Vietnamese armies that were allied with the U.S.during the war.

Orange County has the largest Vietnamese enclave in the U.S.Many refugees made their home in the area following the c...