Talking with one of the angry vets. "Meeting the other reality face to face."

[madfloridian]

HollyJ posts at HEP about her families experiences at the protest in DC this week-end. Part 1 showed the anger of the right toward anyone on the left who opposes their views. It was new to her family.

Here is Part One of Meeting the other reality. I posted about it yesterday in a thread.

Meeting the other reality, Part One

The "anti-antis" continued to shout at the marchers, "Faggot", "Mother F**ers" giving the finger and adding. "We hate you". The young protesters sang back, "We love YOU" repeating it again and again. The green leprechaun for peace ignored the man spewing hate directly in her face.

After an hour the marchers had all crossed the bridge and we once again were facing the "anti-antis" hate group. You could feel the anger move in waves across the street with the policeman buffering the tide. I felt as if we need to outlast them, or at least hold our ground. Eventually they moved down the hill for a warmer place. They either got cold or they became bored of us as we just stood quietly with the "Pray for Peace" banner.

But this one is more so...impressive that is. Holly J. has more patience than I would right now.

From HEP
Meeting the "Other Reality" Face to Face (part two)

"Walking to a sandwich shop for both warmth and food, my family talked about what we had just witnessed. Raw anger and hatred directed squarely at us. It was frightening and startling, something new for us as white middle class Americans. We had done nothing in our estimation to warrant such a response, something like what recipients of hate crimes and prejudices experience.

As we ate our chips and subs, three burly leather jacket men with eagles on their backs sat by the window. We instinctively wanted to cover our small peace buttons. We talked about how mean-spirited it was. In our minds, we bunched them in to a group of fat, bald headed, uneducated, middle age, white men who believe all the propaganda of the Bush regime.

The day before we had a training on civil disobedience taught by the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq.

We had taken the non violence pledge including:
-We will be open and respectful toward each person we encounter
-We will not use violence, verbal or physical toward any person, especially those who we disagree
-We believe all people hold at least one truth to which we can connect.

Here is the gist of her talk with an older vet from Vietnam...it is moving.

But, why did he feel such anger and why was he so protective of the Viet Nam memorial? I asked him if has had a reunion with the marines that he had served with. He paused and I looked sideways at him from my airplane seat.

His eyes teared over. "No, I haven't. You see they gave us all new M16 rifles. We didn't know they were no good, defective. The bullets would get stuck in the barrel from the mud and moisture of the swamps, but I liked my old M 14 so I had kept mine. We were sent into a big battle (and stated the name of it). We lost over a thousand marines that day. My marine buddies.

And all that was left of them was the names on that granite wall.

Thanks, Holly J, for the great posts. You refer to it as misplaced anger being manipulated, and there is a lot of truth to that.

When does it end? I remember Vietnam, and I remember too many funerals of the guys from our area. Their families then as now tried to make sense of it. Most could not.

[Monkeyman]

1. I was there I never could make any sense out of it That's why I marched with Kerry

This war has opened some wounds for allot of vets. But the ones at the March are not like the rest of us. You want to read who they are go here http://www.veteransforamerica.org in the blog the Major has posted their agenda.

[madfloridian]

2. Thanks, Monkeyman, I will do that.

I remember one of our friends here lost their only son. They were devastated, the father was never the same. He had been a judge for years, but the tragedy forced him to retire. He was unable to concentrate. I remember the funeral.

I remember a teacher next to me who lost her fiancee...MIA. I never saw much of her after that. She had to move away. She had gotten pregnant just before he was sent to Vietnam. In the 60s you sort of disappeared if that happened. At least for 9 months. I never did hear if he made it back. Long time ago.

There were more.

[Monkeyman]

3. That Story is how allot of my brothers ended up

War should never be fought on lies. War is a ugly horror.

[Warren Stupidity]

4. "We lost over a thousand marines that day"

Odd that. I could be wrong, but I do not recall a battle in that war where we lost anywhere close to 1,000 of our soldiers in one day. I suppose memory plays tricks. The Tet Offense, which covered around three weeks was arguably the largest battle of the war for the USA forces, and resulted in a total of around 2,000 casualties over the entire period across the entire region.

[madfloridian]

5. Just quoting that old guy's memories.

:hi:

[Warren Stupidity]

9. I know that, I just found it odd that he had to make shit up.

I am always curious about the myths people invent for their lives.

[Monkeyman]

6. The Tet Offense was hell

Every Capital city was taken it took us nine months to take it all back. You are right about the Marines they where being hit day and night for months. Send me a EM I will put in touch with a Navy Combat medic who can tell you more about that battle.

[madfloridian]

7. Firedoglake has post up about this Gathering of Eagles.

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/19/late-nite-fdl-anatomy-of-a-conservative-sissy-attack/

Kind of long, but worth it. I wondered why they were talking about liberals defacing things. Sounded sort of typical. Here are some quotes from there.

"Step One: Invent a phony threat — for instance, to the Vietnam War Memorial

Step Two: Create a fake-nonpartisan campaign to 'protect' the memorial from the vile and vicious spitters-on and desecrators-of, who are converging on DC in a mammoth hippie tidal wave

Step Three: Declare victory! The Vietnam Memorial was saved!

"Say guys, I heard some hippies are threatening to desecrate various locations in and around Baghdad. Why don’t the 30,000 of y’all surge on over?

…Hey wait, where did everybody go?

Update: No such Park Service, ‘Parks Service,’ or ‘Parks and Service’ estimate has appeared in any form, apparently because the National Park Service no longer estimates the size of crowds at public events. No publicly available photo on the Web — although please correct us if we’re wrong — shows more than a couple of hundred pro-war demonstrators in any place at any time."

And check out this screen shot from Fox posted there.



In case you can't read the crawl here is what it says:

"Counter protestors outnumber anti-war forces 3-to-1 at rally."

Fox News Fair and Balanced.

[thekuch]

8. Dennis Kucinich: Is It Time For Impeachment? (video)

Dennis Kucinich: Is It Time For Impeachment? (video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_ckfdlrja8



The Kuch