Posted on 10/06/2005 7:42:08 PM PDT by Albion Wilde
Edited on 10/26/2005 9:47:43 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Please note: to view the stunning photos by TgslTakoma and BMWcyle that illustrate this story, click the italic photo captions.
WASHINGTON, DC, September 30, 2005—After twenty-four Friday nights of schlepping the Mother of All Banners, scores of pro-troops signs and dozens of American flags to Georgia Avenue at Elder Street – and don't forget the icewater, soda chests, hot pizzas and lawn chairs – it gets old.
Across the street, the same old Code Pink and "Veterans for Peace" leftists reliving their glory days of the 60s. Only now, darkness comes earlier than it did throughout the summer, more like it was in March, when Code Pink's disingenuous "peace vigil" every Friday night outside Walter Reed Army Medical Center began.
True, we are the DC Chapter of FreeRepublic.com, otherwise known as FReepers, and we can have fun anytime there's an anti-American protest to be countered, especially here in the nation's capital against such taste-free opponents, whose cheesey "vigil" at an army hospital in wartime is as cloyingly artificial as the scent of their candles-in-a-jar from Bed Bath and Beyond. Code Pink's adolescent, long-running political pout was beginning to bore us as well as them, in spite of the many fresh FReeper faces who've been showing up every week, saying that they heard or read about our counter-demonstrations at Walter Reed and wanted to stand with us in support of our wounded troops.
We've also leveraged pressure on Code Pink to make them stow most of their blatantly anti-war signs – yet their remaining messages clearly intend to demoralize the wounded and their families – make them feel victimized by military higher-ups, hopeless about their mission and ashamed of their service – in short, to kindle insecurities they are sure the troops are too dumb to cultivate on their own, without their generous Marxist tutelage.
Last year Code Pink, having struck the fashionably privileged-class pose that the United States is the most morally corrupt among nations, gave $600,000 to "the other side" – families of the insurgents blowing up our troops – in Fallujah, one of the bloodiest strongholds in the Iraq War. Now, having possibly contributed to shattering the bodies of troops like those inside Walter Reed, they pose outside with hypocritical sentiments like "Up Veteran Benefits" scrawled on bilious pink flimsyboard.
Then there is Code Pink's endorsement of the World Tribunal on Iraq, a scurrilous anti-American screed signed onto by anarchists and socialists from around the globe, that calls for victory by the Iraqi insurgency, the defeat of Coalition objectives and rejection of the developing Iraqi constitution – all this; and the mainstream media ignores Code Pink's shady complicity. It's been enough to keep FReepers coming back to face their twisted psychodrama, to watch them play the part of people who care about the troops. Tonight, we find out how deep Code Pink's caring about our troops really runs.
About an hour into the Same Old Same Old, a suddenly gathering roar with overtones of metal on metal escalated towards the dusk-darkened entrance gates of Walter Reed. The Pinkos visibly shrank behind their Marxist signboards as 18 bikers and biker chicks from the Rolling Thunder veteran's organization arrived, on eleven magnificent two- and three-wheel motorcycles with illuminated hubs and chassis.
While the Pinkos' guts clenched on the west side of Georgia Avenue, FReepers facing them from the east side greeted the arriving bikers with whoops and cheers. The battle-hardened Rolling Thunder members, veterans of the Vietnam, Gulf and Iraq Wars, cruised up, braked smartly, parked in a row and dismounted – directly in front of the Code Pink protest line, blocking them from view – setting off a flurry of efforts to hold their signs over the heads of the bikers.
Code Pink claimed their permit to both westerly corners. The biker vets claimed they could stand on the sidewalk of Walter Reed wherever they wanted, having served their country for the privilege.
"If I go to jail," said one of the bikers, reacting to Code Pink's hysterical attempts to boss the police into arresting the veterans they care so much about, "the tall skinny one's going with me." Code Pink's own Blue Ponytail Guy wrote a dramatic litany of fabrications about the event, asserting that renowned pro-veteran activist Ted Sampley assaulted one of them (wrong), that he is called "Squeegee" (wrong – that's the DC Chapters' pet name for the Code Pink guy who wades into six-lane Georgia Avenue traffic to wave the vee-sign at cars), and that Sampley suddenly made the other Rolling Thunder cyclists appear, in direct response to Code Pink's fulminations.
Wrong!
The Rolling Thunder men and their ladies had started out hours before, cycling to DC from the far corners of Winchester, Virginia, Illinois and North Carolina to join Free Republic against Code Pink at Walter Reed.
Suffering from the John Kerry syndrome, Code Pink's sneering report on their web site then claimed that the DC Police were "rookie officers who sincerely tried to do their best but were clearly out of their depth... outnumbered..." Bemoaning the "powerlessness of the DC police", Code Pink's report reeks of self-importance, going on to reveal their political motivations and communist sympathies.
The police did their jobs, not Code Pink's bidding. As they well know, free speech is also the counter-protesters' right. Negotiations ensued, and Rolling Thunder soon moved their bikes to the Free Republic side of the street.
Pinko Anti-Veteran, Anti-Dog-Walker Diatribe Doesn't Let Up
"[A] dog walker purporting to be a local resident...threatened to complain to the police about us and have us shut down," Code Pink's report whined, casting doubt on the truthfulness of the very neighbors they claim are on their side. (FReepers have listened to this neighbor woman's understandable complaints about any demonstration in a residential neighborhood – several times.) "This brings us," Code Pink's report solemnly intoned, "to the lessons learned on this vigil night." (We had been wondering when Code Pink would get around to seeing why their selfish pantomime is so offensive, but after half a year, light has only just begun to dawn.)
"Clearly, the Vigil before Walter Reed Medical Center has touched...a couple of nerves. One is the broad issue of the exercise of freedom of speech. The second is the issue of the war," their screed concluded, baring the core emotion of their "vigil" – that Code Pink's losing-side resentment of the 2004 election should outweigh their fundamental indecency in exploiting the wounded to stir political rancor.
Perhaps because thousands of the unwashed had poured into Washington with Cindy Sheehan the week before, hoping to use the Iraq War to resurrect 60s' fervor for mayhem and destruction, average citizens and the media mostly yawned; but veterans got the message loud and clear. During the past week, the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) organization issued a statement condemning irresponsibility towards our troops through protests such as this one at Walter Reed hospital.
Jim from Winchester, Virginia, a Bible-quoting biker and veteran who served from '63 to '67, understood very well that the military won the Vietnam War on the ground but lost it in the media. "When my two brothers-in-law returned from duty in Vietnam, they were met at the airport by war protesters who pelted them with rotten eggs and spoiled tomatoes.
"I made up my mind right then," said the muscular grandfather in black leather and a black do-rag. "Never again would any soldiers or their family members be spit on in America."
Tonight, Jim was doing something about the leftists' stomach-turning political opportunism: he strode not only in front of our lines, but across and along the Code Pink lines, passionately declaiming,
"Bring the troops home? Hah!
"Guys with prosthetic legs in there say they want to go back! They want to rejoin their units!
"Their service is honorable!
"They are doing their job and completing their mission!
"Leave 'em alone!"
Another biker, a marine veteran, told his story. "We came back on the USS Coral Sea," he said, referring to an aircraft carrier with a flat runway deck, where ranks of marines standing in orderly formation were plainly visible from shore as they prepared to disembark into an ambush of 60's anti-war protesters. "We were wearing parade dress uniforms," he continued. "The [bleeps] poured garbage on us. They spit on us. Nobody would talk to us," he recalled. "Not even the hookers."
Today's protesters aren't just grassroots students and housewives; studies show that current leftist agitators ally themselves with international socialist and communist organizations pitted against this nation, and hire costly marketing and PR firms such as Fenton Communications, which managed many of Code Pink's involvements with Cindy Sheehan. To contemporary subversives, undermining the United States, claiming that a war approved by Congress is illegal, calling our troops "killers" and having the same handful of operatives show up at demonstrations around the country is managed in businesslike fashion by professionals with corporate instincts – and funding. Judging by the results, however, the Walter Reed "vigil" needs a better business model, such as shifting its venue to the offices of Senators and Congressmen.
It was time for all good men to come to the aid of their country. Inspired by a FReeper sign, "Got Freedom? Kiss a VET", a group of Rolling Thunder veterans launched a strategic mission that would test Code Pink's recently professed caring and concern for veterans. As FReepers chanted, "Hug! A! Vet! – Hug! A! Vet!", intrepid patrols of hug-seeking biker vets crossed Georgia Avenue to the cold pink heart of the opposition, only to be turned away, utterly unhugged. After three separate forays worthy of the flower-power days of Haight Ashbury '69, they returned, proud veterans still; but clearly unloved by Code Pink. Mission accomplished: unmasking the enemy.
So Hot, We're Radioactive
While Code Pink malcontents continued to puzzle the mysteries of living in a parallel universe, joyful FReepers spent the evening cheering any and all personnel who drove in and out of Walter Reed and the vast majority of passing vehicles that beeped, waved, woo-hooed or air-horned in support not only of the troops, but also of their mission and Commander-in-Chief.
The surprise visit from veteran elders, described even in Code Pink's wistful phrase as "a bunch of muscle bound heroic figures with square jaws and windswept hair," demonstrated anew the brotherhood of veterans to the troops and their solidarity with the wounded. The "vigil's" false piety about veterans was exposed. And so was the leftists' contempt for Free Republic's speech rights, for the neighbors' true feelings about their having sparked this confrontation at the gates of a medical sanctuary, and for the Metro police.
Metro police are under constant assault from criminals, traffic, and the heightened security risks in the nation's capital. Tightly bound by activist judicial restraints, DC police deal with protesters of all stripes competently and courteously, as one of them did tonight when something on the FReep line set off the radiation detector he wore on his belt.
"Did one of you have an X-ray today?" the officer inquired, without throwing anyone to the ground in a headlock. He moved around our line until he found the sources of radioactivity – two "hot" FReepers who had individually undergone medical radiation treatments. The DC Chapter of Free Republic is constantly grateful for the Metro Police's professionalism.
This week's turnout from Code Pink: twenty, tops, at the height of their activities. FReepers totaled 48 to 50. FReepers included TroopRally and Mrs Troop Rally, 3-D Joy, tgslTakoma, sonoftgslTakoma, Second Class Citizen, PleaDeal, Maica, Landry Fan, Kristinn, Lurker Joan, Justanobody, Jimmy Valentine's Brother, Jack Deth, a FReeper child, Fraxinus, Concretebob, Christopher Lincoln, Cathie_221, BufordP, BMWcyle, BillF, Beandog, Appleblossom and Albion Wilde, and guests Bill from Maryland, Phil from Olney, Eric Hawkins USA Ret., Ted Sampley and Jan Barwick of US Veterans Dispatch, John from Virginia and wife Mary Bell (their son is a Marine in Iraq), Jesse from Maryland, plus 15 to 18 associates of Rolling Thunder Motorcycle Rally.
Join us this week as we continue to meet Code Pink on First Amendment grounds. We hold out hope that they will learn the only mantra that truly worked in the 60s, "Work within the system." Having the right to do something doesn't mean it will work when you do it and decent people are revolted by it, such as anti-war demonstrating at a military hospital. We urge them to use the rights our troops have fought for to make this a win-win, and move their protest to a more appropriate location.
Additional links:
All of BMWcyle's photos of the event.
All of TgslTakoma's photos of the event.
Code Pink's ludicrously inaccurate wishful thinking "report" of the event (barf alert).
Earlier thread: Gael Murphy's (Code Pink) Blood Pressure Hits a New High
This Rocks!
LOL! The similarities between the two are uncanny!
We are sorry to be missing the fun in this "heavy mist." The question is, are Code Pinkos fair-weather commies?
Outstanding report! Thank you for doing after-action report duty and for the time and effort expended so that we could share the freep experience.
Bump for FRiday night game. FReedom loving FReepers vs. Code Pinko Commies. Looking forward to report.
Reporting back that it was a successful freep. We had a good number of people on our side willing and able to cheer on our troops through the rain. When I think about the extreme temperatures our troops face daily, the rain tonight wasn't much of a factor.
Gael Murphy was struck by water this evening and melted.
Miss you stop by when you get home.
LOL.
Thanks Landry Fan. Thanks so much to all activist FReepers, their friends and their families.
It was so much easier than dropping a house on her.
Just got back. All were present and accounted for!
Official After Action Report will be recorded by Albion at some point.
Right now we are all VERY wet.
We're all back!
But the little feet shriveling up is so cool. Code Pink knows it's in the wrong holding a protest at a military hospital housing wounded soldiers. It would take a witch to think of an idea like that.
:-)
Not rain, Landry Fan; it was very humid.
;-)
High humidity it is.
but the 4 hours I stood with ya'll, made it all worth it
no one is shooting at me.
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