As war protesters marched toward Arlington Memorial Bridge en route to the
Pentagon yesterday, they were flanked by long lines of military veterans and others who stood in solidarity with U.S. troops
and the Bush administration's cause in Iraq. Many booed loudly as the protesters passed, turned their backs to them or yelled,
"If you don't like America, get out!"
Several thousand vets, some of whom came by bus from New Jersey, car caravans
from California or flights from Seattle or Michigan, lined the route from the bridge and down 23rd Street, waving signs such
as "War There Or War Here." Their lines snaked around the corner and down several blocks of Constitution Avenue in what organizers
called the largest gathering of pro-administration counter-demonstrators since the war began four years ago.\
The vets turned both sides of Constitution into a bitter, charged gantlet
for the war protesters. "Jihadists!" some vets screamed. "You're brain-dead!" Others chanted, "Workers World traitors must
hang!" -- a reference to the Communist newspaper. Some broke into "The Star-Spangled Banner" as war protesters sought to hand
out pamphlets.
"Bunch of hooligans in motorcycle jackets!" one war protester shot back.
The large turnout surprised even some counter-demonstrators. Polls show
public opinion turning against the war in Iraq, and the November election was widely seen as a repudiation of the administration's
policy.
"I've never been to a war rally. I hoped I'd never have to," said Jim Wilson,
62, a Vietnam vet from New Hampshire. "We're like what they used to call the silent majority."
In some past antiwar rallies, the number of counter-demonstrators has ranged
from a handful to a few hundred. "Our side got apathetic," said Debby Lee, whose son Marc, a Navy SEAL, was killed in Iraq
and who came to the rally from Phoenix in a caravan organized by MoveAmericaForward.org.
But the war protesters have gone too far, Lee and others said. At
a Jan. 27 antiwar rally, some protesters spray-painted the pavement on a Capitol terrace. Others crowned the Lone Sailor statue
at the Navy Memorial on Pennsylvania Avenue with a pink tiara that had "Women for Peace" written across it.
Word of those incidents ricocheted around the Internet.
"That was the real catalyst, right there," said Navy veteran Larry Bailey.
"They showed they were willing to desecrate something that's sacred to the American soul."
Well before 7 a.m., hundreds of people milled about near the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial in an effort to, they said, "occupy the ground" and keep any disrespectful war protesters away.
"This is sacred ground to us," said Rick De Marco, 62, a Vietnam veteran
from Cleveland.
K.C. O'Brien, 65, a Vietnam vet from Fairfield, Calif., said: "We believe
in freedom of speech. We're here to defend the right of people to say whatever they want. But we will not allow any desecration."
Within days of the spray-painting, people were using he Web to organize,
making it their mission to protect the monuments, support the troops and accept nothing less than victory in Iraq.
Gathering of Eagles, the group that organized the protest, was so worried
about threats to the monuments that it hired private security to guard the Wall, said Harry Riley, 69, a retired Army colonel
from Florida. Other vets patrolled the area through the night and early morning, he said.
By early morning, the National Park Service had installed two metal detectors
and carefully controlled entry along the path leading to the Wall. Blue-helmeted riot police were stationed along the length
of the Wall. For a time, a handful of vets paraded back and forth with American flags waving in the stiff, cold breeze.
By 2 p.m., with the war protesters across the Potomac River, the metal detectors
had come down. The path along the Wall was quiet as the occasional veteran paused at the name of someone remembered.
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Gathering of Eagles warm graves of fallen soldiers:
Miracle in Washington
By Judi McLeod
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Yesterday, St. Patrick's Day 2007, a group of ordinary patriots, known nobly
as The Gathering of Eagles, achieved something no one else ever could.
Ragtag by nature, Gathering of Eagles' membership includes the wounded, both walking and in wheelchairs, the gratefully
and proudly ageing and the living-with-the-memory-of-lost- loved ones, brokenhearted. Some lie awake nights worrying about
loved ones still in harm's way, but the one human emotion missing from Gathering of Eagle members is disillusion. All because
if there was any chance the touted anti-war protesters were going to desecrate war memorials, then The Gathering of Eagles
members were going to be there--no matter from how far away they had to come, no matter in what shape March 17 was to find
them in.
Read the rest of the article at: http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/cover031807.htm
