SHE was an Army sergeant. Tragically, despite her military training, her own boyfriend strangled her. In her honor, her family erected two SpongeBob monuments at the Spring Grove cemetery in Cincinnati. Both SpongeBobs were in uniform.

“I thought it was the greatest thing in the cemetery,” Deborah Walker, the soldier’s mother, told a local radio station. “I even told the people there that I think this is the best monument I’ve ever seen. It’s the best headstone in the cemetery and they all agreed. It came out really nice.”

The cemetery of the future is coming into view.

— Comments —

Henry McCulloch writes:

Were it not that this story is ultimately about the brutal murder of a woman it would be the stuff of comedy.  Even under the evil circumstances it reads as parody, but in upside-down post-America it is not parody.  It is an account of reality in what has become of our country.  Still, three things struck me about this sad but absurd story.

First, and as you note, does the United States Army not train its soldiers to defend themselves?  It is true that Corporal (so she is identified in the story reporting her murder; by the time of the story about the odd doings at the cemetery the unfortunate woman appears to have been promoted – posthumously? – to Sergeant) Kimberly Walker was attacked by a fellow soldier who may have had some training in how to hurt people.  But should she not have had enough training to fend him off long enough to get away?  Montrell Mayo was not armed.  And if she had such training and still was unable to defend herself long enough to evade an unarmed attacker and survive, what does that say about the wisdom of women’s being soldiers in the first place?

The Sponge-Bob obsession, which Kimberly Walker apparently shared with her sister Kara, is strange but not as surprising as it should be in a society as infantilized as ours has become.

Second, the Cincinnati news story to which you link unconsciously reveals just how deeply unserious the U.S. armed forces are today, and must surely have brought smiles to the lips of any Chinese or Russian intelligence officers who may have read it, as well as to any jihadists chafing to have a go at the Great Satan:

When [Kimberly] Walker of Madisonville[, Ohio,] was growing up, she began watching SpongeBob SquarePants cartoons on television and was hooked.

“She just really fell in love with SpongeBob and after that everything she did it always had to have SpongeBob in it somewhere,” said Kimberly’s twin sister, Kara Walker.

Her mother, Deborah Walker, said that meant SpongeBob everywhere.

“Her bathroom — everything was SpongeBob. Her bed, her sheets, everything was SpongeBob,” Deborah said.

Kimberly and Kara even exchanged SpongeBob bears on their 21st birthday. Kimberly’s was called “Determination” and went with her to Iraq. Kara was in the Navy and took her bear “Loveable” everywhere. (emphasis added)

Picture that in your mind.  Girl — no, make that women: the story states that both were over 21 — soldiers and sailors deploying to defend Americans from … what, exactly? … clutching their cartoon-character teddy bears to their breasts as they ship out.  I should say it boggles the mind, but the mind is harder and harder to boggle given the daily dose of absurdity that is life in the post-modern West.  Why were these twin sisters both in the armed forces?  Please forgive my wondering if their enlisting was not effectively a form of welfare.  As for the extraordinarily poor taste in memorials shown by Kimberly Walker’s survivors, let’s pass over that in their grief.

Third, although I followed several Cincinnati news source links about this story after reading your post, not one mentioned that Kimberly Walker’s murder was a black-on-black crime.  What if her murderer had been a white man?  I’m sure we would not have been kept in the dark about that.  I strongly suspect we would have heard all about it from commander-in-chief Barack himself, as he demanded yet another institutional inquiry into racism in the armed forces…  Still, it was easy enough to find out as photographs of both victim and murderer are on the internet.

I suppose I am left, again, with the sinking feeling that the United States, now a frivolously decadent country in so many ways, has a commensurately frivolous and decadent military.  And I see no prospect of that changing any time soon.

Laura writes:

There’s another element to the story. The Spring Grove Cemetery immediately took down the monuments when they were installed and said the worker who had approved them had made a mistake (that’s putting it mildly.) But then the cemetery did an about-face after the family had hired lawyers. I wonder whether the case involved civil rights violations of some kind. It’s not entirely inconceivable. Whatever their case was, it apparently was enough to move the cemetery to apologize and  permit these monstrosities, which must offend many of the people who have bought family plots there. I wouldn’t be surprised if the U.S. Army indirectly subsidized the legal case. Also, there’s something very much reflective of black culture here — the sense of entitlement that Deborah Walker displays, not to mention the poor taste.

Don Vincenzo writes:

Mr. McCulloch’s comments come at an “interesting” time: The Army’s Chief of Staff, Gen. Odierno, is the source of an AP story which claims that last year at least 11,000 soldiers have been discharged as a result of crimes or misconduct. However, the article does not say how many of the 11,000 were dishonorably discharged. That figure is a dramatic increase over the earlier highest figure of 5,700 in 2007, as the Iraq war was winding down.

But enlisted men were not alone in unbecoming conducting: Gen. William Kip Ward was “retired” for lavish an unauthorized spending, while Brig. General Jeffrey Sinclair got his walking papers for, amongst other charges, “sexual misconduct,” which, according to a friend who is a US Marine JAG Officer, “is now endemic in the military.”

In 2010, 119 Army officers resigned and were forced out; last year that number rose to 387. That number does not include the other branches of our military where recent charges of corruption and cheating, which may involve cases of courts martial, are both percolating through both the Navy and Air Force. Sec. Defense Hegel’s comment that, “Ethics is now a priority,” is risible.

Gen Odierno quoted statement, “We are not tolerant of those showing bad behavior,” is equally ridiculous, for what both these men know but will not admit is that the admission of women into the military is, ipso facto, the major reason for so many of the problems the military faces today.

Since I see no likelihood of that happening under any future administration, despite the fact that I am not a gambling man I will wager that in the future U.S. military there will be other Kimberly Walkers, and equally certain there will be more Montrell Mayos.

A reader writes:

My dear first husband is buried at Spring Grove and  it does seem rather crass to put SpongeBob memorial markers there.

This beautiful place was started in the 1840s as a concerned response to the poorly kept burial places of numbers of victims of cholera in the 1830s and 1840s. It has hundreds of beautiful trees and beautiful plantings with many old and gracious stone memorials. The design and arboretum quality remind me of the planning done by Frederick Law Olmsted.

When I go to visit my husband’s grave it is a peaceful place in any season. His grave stone is all that I could afford and is quite simple. The idea of remembering someone with a marker significant to someone is not new but a cartoon figure? Even Mel Blanc the voice for Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig,etc. didn’t have a memorial in place with those figures prominent (I believe his stone does say,”That’s All Folks!”). It seems that it would have been more in keeping with this place and those who visit there to have a stone with a laser etching of SpongeBob in the corner and a  flag of the U.S. elsewhere and her name and all.

I hope I don’t see it the next time I am at the cemetery.

Buck writes:

 Nowhere can I find a stated reason for the two monuments instead of a normal one. While searching I found a photo of a “life-size” female standing next to, what I assume is, one of the two monuments. I can’t believe how big it is. If the photo is actually of one of the two monuments, then there are two giant cartoon characters (who would realistically be only about two feet tall) towering around eight feet tall over hundreds of formerly solemn graves and they surely can be seen standing from way off at a distance. This is the kind invasion that you would expect from a radical, hateful atheist, backed by a team of civil rights lawyers.

Buck adds:

I found a YouTube news report that give more details. I can’t read clearly the designers drawings, but it appears that the monuments are six foot eight inches tall. They cost $13,000 each. The mother, it is said, bought six burial plots. No reason is given for the second monument. I speculate that it’s intended for the sister. From the video it appears that the cemetery has all sorts of large monuments. The giant size of the SpongBobs may have been to compete.

Laura writes:

I did not post photos of the monuments because they are so hideous I can’t bear to look at them. They are monstrosities. My condolences to the reader whose husband is buried at Spring Grove. This is an outrage.

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