Wow - thank you for sharing that amazing and heartwarming experience! I remember I used to see the threads about those counter demonstrations at Walter Reed. I always wanted to attend one, but was working “over there” at the time. I always appreciated what the DC FReepers were doing.
We did some good counter demonstrations in Houston at that time. One was big one with A.N.S.W.E.R. just before the Iraq War started in 2003. They brought in bus loads of unwashed hippies from all over the state. There were about 4,000 of them and about 12 of us and boy, did our presence piss them off! The cops set us up in a spot where they all had to match right past us with our numerous signs and patriotic chants. All of those FReeps we did back then were so much fun.
Glad you got to see your parents’ resting place at ANC. Both of my parents are buried there as well. I’ll get back up there when this Covid craziness is over. I still have family in the area.
A.N.S.W.E.R....what a pantload those people were. They got off their busses and were handed signs and box lunches. Probably cash too. (I deduce the box lunches were handed out, because you saw the trash from them everywhere, just dumped on the ground and boxes discarded). They were complete littering slobs. The detritus of Leftism was all over the bridge they came across, even including used baby diapers, thrown on the ground.
I always liked to contrast it with how Conservatives conducted themselves, we policed areas before we left them, and if we had trash, we would throw it into trash receptacles, and if those were full, piled alongside it.
I did an analysis from pictures I took that contrasted the Lefties with Conservatives, focusing on the types of signs and flags they carried, and it tells the difference:
This is a Leftist demonstration, I took this from the large rotary just across the river from the Lincoln Memorial right outside the entrance to ANC:
This is an example of one of the rarer Leftist handmade signs:
And this is what the March on Washington (Tea Party) looked like:
Yep. Stinking Leftists.