Granddaughter Of WWII Nurse Sets Record Straight After VA Attempts To Ban Iconic V-J Day Photo

ANALYSIS – In the latest example of the petty leftist lunacy infecting Team Biden, far-left Assistant Under Secretary for Health for Operations RimaAnn O. Nelson at the Veterans Administration (VA) unilaterally moved to ban the world-famous, black-and-white “V-J Day in Times Square” photo from all VA facilities. (RELATED: Biden’s DHS Endangering Security Of American Homeland)

This iconic photo depicts the spontaneous moment a happy but inebriated male U.S. Navy sailor kissed a female dental assistant (nurse) dressed in white in Times Square, New York City. This, on the day Japan’s surrender in World War Two was announced in 1945.

The sailor, George Mendonsa, reportedly “wanted to thank the nurses for saving his life, so he kissed my grandmother, explained Caroline Branin, referring to her grandmother, Greta Friedman, who died in 2016 at age 92.

Branin, 28, told the Daily Mail that her grandmother was “always very proud of the image and she thought it was two young people celebrating in the street.”

Branin said: ‘It was a spontaneous moment. George’s wife is in the background of the image, she’s laughing.

Thankfully, in this case, sanity prevailed. (RELATED: Kentucky Democrat Under Fire For Proposing Radical Use Of Child-Size Dolls)

Despite admitting in her memo that the photo came to symbolize a “celebration of the end of the war,” the clueless and woke Biden VA bureaucrat RimaAnn O. Nelson, wrote in her memo to all employees: 

“The photograph, which depicts a non-consensual act, is inconsistent with the VA’s no-tolerance policy towards sexual harassment and assault.” (RELATED: Pentagon Wokeness May Provoke Government Shutdown, Warns GOP Congress)

Nelson added in typical lefty-speak: “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.”

Her memo instructed all VA employees to replace the historic image with one deemed less offensive to the ignorant woke mob.

However, Branin thinks this was absurd.

Daily Mail reported Branin as noting about her grandmother:

She was proud to be an American citizen. She was a refugee from Austria and so the end of the war marked more to her than for everyday people.

‘She never felt it was something inappropriate. It’s interesting they tried to reframe historical events in today’s values.

‘I have a picture in my house that my grandma signed and even George Mendonsa signed it. My grandma stayed in contact with George and she did parades on V-J day with him.

‘She never said it was anything she felt was uncomfortable’.

Branin added: “At college I had a women and gender studies teacher who showed that image and said: ‘This is a sexual assault.’

“I put my hand up and said that’s actually my grandma, she didn’t view it that way. The teacher disagreed with me.”

Fortunately, the massive online backlash to the leaked memo forced Nelson’s boss, Joe Biden’s Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough to metaphorically say “Oh kiss off” and publicly deny the photo was banned.

“Let me be clear: This image is not banned from VA facilities – and we will keep it in VA facilities,” McDonough said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

READ NEXT: Biden Won’t Send US Troops To Stop Crime Disaster