Ft. Lewis protest – What happened there (hair-raising, inspiring)

[Barrett808]

This was posted at MilitaryFamiliesSpeakOut (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MilitaryFamiliesSpeakOut) by Vicky Monk. Subscribe and tell her how courageous she is!

The Saturday Ft. Lewis protest made all the local news stations and most of the newpapers, but the entire story from my perspective isn't being told.

Not In Our Name (NION) scheduled this protest several weeks ago to coincide with the reporting date for 3000 National Guardsmen slated for deployment to Iraq. There were numerous discussions about how to handle this event, and it was eventually decided to encourage only peaceful support of the soldiers and their families.

My party arrived about noon and were shocked to see about 1000 pro-war supporters spread out on the overpass, nearby streets, and intersections. As soon as we approached the nearest group of pro-war demonstrators I was shoved back by an angry man wearing a veterans cap.

We continued walking through the angry crowd, finally finding other anti-war folks. We joined them and were enveloped in a circle of screaming pro-war demonstrators, pressing us into a tight ball and draping us with very large American flags. They were effectively denying our 1st amendment rights by preventing anyone from seeing or hearing us.

Most of this was a blur and I couldn't hear what was being said most of the time because it sounded like a roar. The few encounters I remember include, one young man was screaming in my face and I asked him over and over if he believed in the war so much why wasn't he there? Finally he answered me and said he wanted to go but is unable to join the military. An older woman was yelling at me, she thinks I'm a terrorist endangering her grandson who is in Iraq, I told her my son was there and I understood her anguish and I said I would pray for her grandson's safe return. At that point several other people nearby began chanting wishes that my son should be killed in Iraq. One man called us communists and number of times, saying we should go to Russia. I finally turned to him and said, "Russia is a democracy now". He didn't seem to be aware of it or even to care.

We stayed for about 1 hour and fifteen minutes then left. I was able to give two interviews one with a Seattle Times reporter and another with an API reporter. You can read the Seattle Times article at this link,
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=guard16m&date=20031116&query=Troops+supporters

(more)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MilitaryFamiliesSpeakOut/message/7698

(on edit: added a blurb about Vicky -- I wasn't there)

[mourningdove92]

1. Wow, that is really scary.

Sounds like they were "laying in wait" for the anti war people. Pretty sad that they felt they had to resort to such tactics.

[LoneStarLiberal]

2. As Has Been Said Elsewhere

As had been said elsewhere including a concurrent thread by bluestateguy, I feel that if these rabid attack dogs want to squelch dissent and promote war, particularly the murder of someone's son who is serving, then they are the worst kind of cowardly, utterly reprehensible scum I can imagine.

If they love the smell of napalm in the morning (something only a psycho or a chickenhawk who never smelled it could love), then they need to get their cowardly asses into the service and get on over to Iraq so we can rotate some war weary reservists and guard units back home.

For anyone who thinks liberals are all meek and submissive, chew on this: I would sterilize these degenerate pieces of trash, remove any children to foster homes, and set them to work digging graves for our soldiers who died protecting their ignorance and armchair militance.

[Wwagsthedog]

3. Glad you made it through this incident OK.

I really admire your guts and forbearance. Sure hope all is well with your son.

[flamingyouth]

4. We were concerned for you after reading the papers

Very scary stuff, indeed. We're on the NION list, and when we heard about this, we were just horrified. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for your work down there.

[Ksec]

5. we need to get

as fanatic as they are as much as I hate to say this.

Fight Fire with fire, or we get bullied like we have been getting.Just takes one standup to a bully to get him to understand you aint havin it...

[Barrett808]

6. Looking on the bright side...

...it's a good sign that outright violence didn't erupt, so we haven't fallen completely into the abyss. Particularly hopeful is the statement of the police officer: "He has as much right to go where he wants as you do." ("Supporters gather near Fort Lewis as 3,300 Guardsmen report")

As I said on the MFSO list, These people are afraid, and who can blame them? Their delusional model of the world is collapsing around their ears and the cognitive dissonance is making them a little crazy. I'm somewhat optmistic their anger will eventually be directed at the right target: the neo-con mafia.