An illegal immigrant from Mexico allegedly took a sledgehammer to the famous Iwo Jima monument outside Marine Corps Base Quantico on Wednesday night, knocking a Marine’s head off during the famous flag-raising scene.
Prince William County police caught Miguel Alonso Maldonado Soriano, 27, bashing the limestone monument with a sledgehammer around 10:15 p.m. Police said the damage would be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Federal sources told Fox News that the Stafford resident entered the United States in December 1999 as a child. In 2014, he gained protection under Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which has been extended for ten years, most recently in 2024 under Joe Biden. The protection expired in August after President Donald Trump’s administration did not extend it, sources said.
NEW: The suspect arrested Tuesday for using a sledgehammer to decapitate the World War II Iwo Jima Memorial in Quantico, Virginia, is a Mexican illegal immigrant and former DACA recipient whose legal status expired this year, multiple federal sources confirmed to @FoxNews.
Miguel Alonso Maldonado… pic.twitter.com/dUOOrk4y0x
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) October 23, 2026
“The dream of criminal illegal aliens is over: Maldonado Soriano disrespected our brave service members and defaced the beautiful monuments honoring their sacrifice,” White House spokesman Taylor Rogers told the New York Post. “President Trump protected our borders and deported illegal criminals who hate our country and our values. Socialist Democrats want to reopen the borders to dangerous illegal alien communities.”
The riot allegedly left one Marine headless. The second Marine was missing the bayonet from his rifle on his back, and the third Marine suffered scratches and gouges on his helmet and face, according to police.
Maldonado Soriano faces felony charges of destruction of property and injury to a monument, as well as criminal trespassing charges. Authorities are holding him without bail.
Felix de Weldon, the sculptor behind Arlington’s giant bronze monument, carved the nine-foot-tall statue that stands on the base’s main entrance near the National Museum of the Marine Corps.
It has been hit before. Someone vandalized it in 2012, and a storm in 2018 split the statue’s hands so badly that officials had to remove the flag. According to local reports in the Potomac, the Marines at the time begged to restore it themselves. A spokesman recalled that someone called the base and said “send a Gunny and three Marines there.”
The statue commemorates one of the most famous moments in American military history.
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Four days later, a Marine patrol fought its way to the top and raised a small flag, drawing cheers from troops below and sailors offshore, according to History.com. Commanders wanted something bigger for everyone to see, so the Marines hauled a second, larger flag up the hill that afternoon, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.
Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal nearly missed it. He raised his camera and captured six Marines struggling to insert the stakes. The photo won the Pulitzer Prize and became the face of the war bond campaign.
The fighting continued for another month. Nearly 7,000 Americans died, and the fighting wiped out nearly the entire Japanese garrison.
Three of the six flag-raisers never left the island, according to the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service. Sgt. Michael Strank, squad leader, Cpl. Harlon Block was killed in action on March 1. On March 21, 19-year-old Franklin Sousley collapsed.
Feed forward. Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from Arizona, returns as a celebrity on a nationwide bond tour. Haunted by lost friends, he struggled with alcoholism and died in 1955 at the age of 32.
The last two, Pfc. Harold Schultz and Cpl. Harold Keller quietly returned to civilian life, never publicly claiming his place in history. According to Military Times, the Marine Corps confirmed that the two men were in the photos in 2016 and 2019, decades after their deaths, correcting records that incorrectly attributed them to others.