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On February 29, 2024, RimaAnn Nelson released a memo announcing that the iconic V-J Day Times Square kiss photo will be banned from all Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare facilities, as reported by the Military Times. This photo was captured as a moment of commemoration, marking the end of World War II on August 14, 1945.
Nelson, who is the Assistant Under Secretary for Health for Operations, Veterans Health Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs, stated in her memo:
“The photograph, which depicts a non-consensual act, is inconsistent with the VA’s no-tolerance policy towards s*xual harassment and assault.”
However, on March 5, 2024, RimaAnn’s boss and Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough overruled the plan to ban the V-J Day kiss photo and wrote on X that the photo would be available across all “VA facilities.”
RimaAnn Nelson joined the Department of Veterans Affairs in 1994
According to the official website of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, RimaAnn Nelson is currently the Assistant Under Secretary for Health for Operations in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), the role she assumed in January 2022.
However, she has been part of the VA department since April 1994 when she joined the Salt Lake City VA Healthcare System. Soon, RimaAnn Nelson became the Medical Center Director of the St. Louis VA Healthcare System.
Later, from July 2013 to October 2016, she served as the Director of the VA Regional Office and Outpatient Clinic at the department’s branch in the Filipino capital city Manila. In this position, Nelson was the leader of the only VA healthcare facility located overseas on U.S. Embassy property and was in charge of all VHA operations, including taking care of military veterans, dependents, and survivors in the Philippines.
Between 2016 and 2019, RimaAnn Nelson was the Executive Director of the Phoenix VA Healthcare System which provided all-around services like primary care, specialty care, mental health care, and allied health services to more than 100,000 veterans across Arizona.
In October 2019, RimaAnn Nelson was promoted to the Network Director for the Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) 10 and oversaw operations at 11 VA Medical Centers and 60 outpatient clinics across the country including Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, and Ohio, among others.
Exploring the V-J Day kiss photo controversy
Last month, RimaAnn Nelson issued a memo asking officials of VHA to “promptly” remove the famous V-J Day kiss photo from all VA facilities. She imposed a ban saying that the image showed “a non-consensual act” that violated the department’s “no-tolerance policy” for harassment and assault. Moreover, she asked her colleagues to replace the photograph with a more appropriate depiction.
Her memo read:
“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.”
RimaAnn Nelson’s memo also claimed that originally the V-J Day photograph was meant to “celebrate and commemorate the end of World War II and the triumphant return of American soldiers,” while observing that “perspectives on historical events and their representations evolved” with time.
Nelson also defended her memo saying the picture ensued “debates on consent and the appropriateness of celebrating such images,” making her prohibit it henceforth.
In the wake of its release, the memo went viral online when X account @EndWokeness posted it on the platform on March 5, 2024. As it continued to garner severe traction (with many deeming it as a politically correct move), VA Secretary Denis McDonough took to X to reverse the ban. He wrote:
“This image is not banned from VA facilities — and we will keep it in VA facilities.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs also shared the secretary’s sentiments and issued a separate statement, “VA will NOT be banning this photo from VA facilities.”
As per the Military Times, VA authorities even condemned the memo and said RimaAnn Nelson should not have released it in the first place. So far, it remains unclear whether the memo was Nelson’s sole brainchild or whether other senior officials of the department were consulted.
It is also a mystery whether any complaints were actually raised about the image although Nelson’s memo claimed it made several employees of the VA uncomfortable.
Notably, Denis McDonough has previously rewrote the VA motto with gender-neutral language and made veterans’ outreach and inclusion the department’s top priorities.
For those uninitiated, the V-J Day kiss photo was captured by Life Magazine photojournalist Alfred Eisenstaedt in New York City’s Times Square on August 14, 1945, to commemorate Japan’s surrender and the end of World War II.
The image depicts an American sailor holding and kissing a woman in a medical worker’s uniform in a crowd full of people. It remains unknown whether they were a couple or not. Over the years, many people claimed themselves to be the people in the photograph, but nobody could ever provide proof to support their claims. Many believe they were George Mendosa and Greta Friedman.
The latter even appeared in a 2005 interview with the Veterans History Project to talk about the same and stated that it was not a “romantic” event, but rather a jubilant moment marking the end of the war, as reported by military.com.
