Photographer at Vietnam Women's Memorial: "The parents seemed really just oblivious to it all"

Some say it was innocent kids play. Others say it was disrespectful.

Photographer Matthew Munson took a picture of children playing on the Vietnam Women's Memorial while veterans looked on in disgust.

He spoke to us Thursday about the incident and what adults did while it was happening.

"They were kind of curious about the monument at first," Munson said about the kids. "They were going up to it. They were looking at it and walking around it. They were even trying to pose against it."

Munson said adults, who he believed to be the parents, then helped the kids onto the monument and laughed while they played.

"Just laughing it off, and especially when veterans came around, they didn't seem in any rush to correct their children or stop them in any way," he said.

Munson said another group of people, not seen in the picture, showed displeasure too.

"They were kind of looking at the parents, waiting for them to use some common sense and get their kids off of the memorial. It was almost obvious that it was wrong but the parents seemed really just oblivious to it all."

Munson said that before the veterans showed up he was observing the adults and children. He said he was more focused on his camera.

"Until I really saw the veterans and it was more of a wake-up call. Kind of like, this is actually wrong. It's really disrespectful, and that's when I started seeing hurt faces of the veterans. It was just like a really big opportunity. I felt like I had to take pictures of it. It just was a very powerful, emotional moment."

Ironically, as Barnard was leaving the memorial on Thursday morning, he snapped and tweeted this pic:

As we were leaving this happened at the #VietnamWomen'sMemorial. First we've seen all day. #fox5dc At mom's urging pic.twitter.com/vGVTq6r7gf