Ohfercryinoutloud.
How utterly embarrassing. Did you see this post in the Washington page? It's a letter that freeper Garjog posted:
Dear Olympia City Council member:
As a life long resident of Washington State, I strongly express my regret at the ill timed and poorly reasoned justification to turn away the USS Olympia from your port.
Your resolution brings shame on our state from across the nation at a time when our military men and women are risking their lives to protect us.
It is irrelevant what you think about the current conflict -- snubbing the USS Olympia crew is an intolerably rude insult to visitors to our state.
The resolution essentially marks the sailors – and by logical inference all who serve in the military -- as officially un-welcomed non-persons.
This sounds like the way the cities in the south 60 years ago treated African Americans.
You make the people of my state not only appear like enemy sympathizers – hoping for our defeat in the war on terror – but completely rude jerks who refuse to welcome men and women devoting their lives to our protection.
The fact that the sub is named after the state capital makes your insult all the more outrageous.
To say that the nuclear powered sub is an environmental threat just by docking in your port is idiotic.
To argue that the costs of the docking should be used for other causes is an obvious attempt to provide some rational basis for your anti-American bigotry. There would be no additional costs to the navy.
Your actions only increase the chance that men and women in uniform visiting or working in Olympia may fear becoming the targets of violent attacks. Words have consequences, and your hateful rhetoric is an invitation for violence against those singled out as officially un-welcome.
Your decision is a colossal embarrassment to everyone in our state.
Action Requested: Please rescind the resolution un-inviting the USS Olympia from your port and issue an apology for this hurtful and unfriendly message.
More Action Requested: If you are unable to rescind the resolution, then we ask that you immediately resign. You have wasted too much of the council’s time on this truly un-patriot insult to our military.
Gary Gillespie
Kirkland, WA
Life Long Washingtonian