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VA Rescinds Memo Directing Facilities To Take Down Iconic V-J Day Times Square Photo Depicting ‘Non-Consensual’ Kiss

The memo was lambasted online before the veterans affairs secretary said the photograph would remain in VA facilities.

AP/Alexander Zemlianichenko
People speak next to a famous photograph taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt of a sailor kissing a nurse in New York's Times Square on V-J Day at the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center. Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough has reversed a department memo shared by a VA undersecretary that aimed to ban VA displays of the iconic photograph because it 'depicts a non-consensual act' and was inconsistent with the department’s sexual harassment policy. AP/Alexander Zemlianichenko
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A memo directing facilities at the Department of Veterans Affairs to take down an iconic photograph taken on V–J Day in Times Square — showing a sailor and a nurse kissing at the end of the Second World War — has been rescinded, according to a source at the VA. 

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