Posted on 02/09/2008 8:00:26 AM PST by coffee260
OK, so 200 Marines stationed in Grand Rapids, Michigan, piled on to five buses and came to Toledo, Ohio, yesterday to practice some urban patrol exercises. The Toledo police knew about the request for the three-day exercise well in advance, but somehow Mayor Carty Finkbeiner didn’t see the memo requesting permission for the event. So when when the first bus arrives at 3:20 p.m. and Staff Sergeant Andre Davis steps off, he is greeted by a city employee and told that the mayor wanted him and his soldiers out of town by 6 p.m. “I wish,” Sgt Davis drily remarked, “they would have told us this four hours ago.”
Indeed.
I gather that Mayor Finkbeiner (a Democrat, readers will be surprised to learn), like the folks in Berkeley, California, can’t think of the United States Marines without having the first lines of “The Destruction of Sennacherib” float through his head (“The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold …”) “The mayor asked them to leave because they frighten people,” said Brian Schwartz, the mayor’s spokesman.
Gee, isn’t that a shame?
Lance Corporal Brandon Bukrey-McCarty recalled how useful such training was when he had been deployed in Fallujah in 2006-2007. The training, he said, “got me used to looking up on rooftops, looking around every alley, every open door.”
Too bad, Brandon! Carty Finkbeiner thinks having U.S. soldiers in town will frighten the voters, so your comrades will just have to do without that training.
The company’s commanding officer, Major Jeffrey O’Neill, was disappointed by Carty Finkbeiner’s cold shoulder—it would, he noted, be difficult to find a suitable alternative venue for the exercise—but “we’re Marines,” he said, “We’ll adapt and overcome.”
I have no doubt about that. I hope part of the adaptation will be to present the City of Toledo—or maybe Carty Finkbeiner himself—with the $10,000 tab that the aborted exercise cost the Marines.
Mayor Finkbeiner can boast on his official website that Tony Packos Restaurant in Toledo was “made famous on the television show M*A*S*H.” But when he has an opportunity to help the men and women who in real life protect this country, including the City of Toledo, he refuses to grant them the sort of permit he would routinely give to a bunch of anti-American activists who wanted to organize a protest march down Main Street. I think it’s disgusting. If I lived in Toledo, I’d be wondering when Carty Finkbeiner was up for re-election and would look forward to sending him out on a 6:00 p.m. bus at the earliest opportunity.
Hat tip for this item to Instapundit.
Saw the article on Fox’s website, I just sent that sorry @ss of a mayor an A-ripping email!
OMG!!! Down here he would be arrested! I once worked for an attorney whose yardman was a murderer. Well, he’d killed a drug dealer (quite frankly, I didn’t think that was a big deal). Anyway, he had to go out of town and had a mother dog with puppies. He’d asked his ex-wife (that was his biggest mistake) to feed and water the dogs for him while he was gone. She didn’t, it was the middle of summer and the dogs died. She reported him to the Humane Society. He got thrown in jail and my boss said later it was easier to get him off the murder conviction than it was to get him out of jail because of what had happened to the dogs. And it wasn’t even the guy’s fault. Too bad it didn’t happen to Mayor Fink!
Thank you, sir! They’d be welcome in our little town anytime, we’d be proud to have ‘em!
My last trip (emphasis "last") to Toledo (via Detroit) was a shocker. The old Westgate area was filled with plywood filled windows and Westgate looked eerily third-worldish. Only Tony Packos and Bob Evans restaurants appeared to be "thriving."
Those working to enhance tourism for Toledo have just been stabbed in the back by their own Mayor. Toledo taxpayers should be outraged as the true colors of Toledo's leadership (and perceived citizens) are national news (and NOT in a good way).
You must have been there around 12-18 months ago, then. They totally redid that area. Now there's a Costco, Starbucks, etc. where Boogie Records and Thackeries and all the rest used to stand.
As far as my "flaming paranoia", that's what keeps you free. If you trust the government, you are the fool, not me. Government is FORCE, nothing less. I have no way of knowing how old you are, but apparently you have been asleep for the last 50 years, or you are too young to remember. I find many posters here today weren't even alive when Carter was president or were in diapers when Clinton did his mischief. If you believe the government is here to "help" you, maybe you would feel more at home at the DU.
As far as me saying there is no utility in urban training, read my posts again. I never said that. I just don't want it done in my town. The 3rd Amendment deals with quartering troops. They can stay out of my house and off the roof of my buildings. The soldiers can get any training they need, from government property. Again, I say, I wonder what the troops back from Baghdad would say, if they were ordered to search, arrest, or shoot US citizens on the say so of some captain somewhere. If we are indeed to that point, then why are they not at the border tonight, arresting and shooting invaders to our country? Are American citizens the only ones you would have them arrest?
Or Bob Evans either. Had been anticipating a trip through Toledo this summer, but NOW, rerouting the trip is planned.
How does one equate training with "doing (some)thing against" citizens?!
Please enlighten us.
If you believe the government is here to "help" you, maybe you would feel more at home at the DU.
I said NOTHING about the government "helping" us. I said that there was no law prohibiting the Marines from training in an empty building in Toledo.
As far as me saying there is no utility in urban training, read my posts again. I never said that. I just don't want it done in my town.
So they can train for urban fighting, but not in an urban situation. Nice.
The 3rd Amendment deals with quartering troops. They can stay out of my house and off the roof of my buildings.
Here's a clue sparky, it isn't your building. And nobody asked your opinion.
The soldiers can get any training they need, from government property.
And you would be first in line to scream bloody murder if the goverment announced a couple billion dollars were going to be spent to build urban training areas for EVERY guard unit in the country.
Again, I say, I wonder what the troops back from Baghdad would say, if they were ordered to search, arrest, or shoot US citizens on the say so of some captain somewhere.
Where, in the name of God, are you getting this?!
These men were training for urban warfare, like is being encountered right now in Baghdad. There is nothing even remotely similar to shooting civilians in the article.
It takes a special kind of crazy to get US Marines shooting civilians out of this story.
When England lost their guns, we had people here talking about fighting to the death, when the MILITARY came to confiscate their guns. Then the Australians did the same, and more talks of forming militias to fight the MILITARY that were coming after them. We had discussions here about how the local police wouldn't be used because we all knew where their families live, etc. This is the same said military that we didn't trust under Clinton, but now, hey, everything is fine because we trust Bush? Now some libs in Toledo don't like the military in their town and they are the kooks.
As I said, all the questions you listed are answered in my previous posts to other posters. If you do get it after that, you can't read.
I have no problem with the US military, the problems always come from the leadership.
I’ve lived in the Toledo area for 45 of my 46 years...the idea that any “voters” would be downtown on a Friday evening is pretty laughable. Thanks to the corrupt incompetence of the ruling class of Democrats, Downtown Toledo is oretty much a ghost town after 5pm. Unless the amyor plans on registering the bums that live in the Cherry Street Mission in time to vote in the primary.
The litany of idiotic moves this cretin has made whilst mayor is too long to enumerate. Let’s just say the city would have benefited greatly had his heighness caught a stray round during a live ammo drill.
Hardly. In my last post I reproduced almost every word of yours from a previous post, verbatim.
You can bring up all the strawmen you want, but it doesn't change the fact that you tried to invoke the 3rd amendment to prevent Marines from simply training. I cannot even being to fathom the depths of your paranoia, and YES, I'm old enough to remember everything you mentioned, and I'm also sane enough to realize we're still a free country.
I don't fear the military, as you do (even with your weak protestations). And I certainly don't fear them training in a city. For the life of me I cannot understand the difference between training in an abandoned building in Toledo, and a simulated abandoned building somewhere in the woods (where, I guess, you won't be able to see it and be scared).
Dear Mayor Fink,
You and your kind are so concerned that our men and women are dying in Iraq but you don’t allow the kind of training that would help keep them alive.
I don’t want my tax dollars going to a city that is not grateful to those who fought and died so your earmarks can be in American dollars instead of Rubles, DM, Euro, dinar, rial, franc, peso, etc. I think you get the idea. I certainly hope that your city is included in the DeMint bill before Congress to stop those earmarks.
I understand that Toledo is a pretty depressed city, let’s see how well you survive without the help of those you condemn.
The Mayor needs our prayers. Not our scorn.
Don’t think I’m not as angry as you. But fake it. Pray for him.
From the police. Why would anyone think that a normal mayor would give a rat's patootie what law abiding folks were doing in an old abandoned building in a part of the city where, on a weekend, most of the people wouldn't even be around, since they'd be home, either farther out in the city or out in the suburbs.
“But we’re Marines,” Major O’Neill said. “We’ll adapt and overcome.”
What a great man!
Come to PA you can train in my backyard and I will cook!
Your Statement: “More shameful is that there will be no consequences.”<p.
Response: Agreed.
Concur.
Your posts are about a silly as your name. The Marines have trained in Dayton, OH several times without any problems. I thought it was damn cool and would welcome them back again.. Conservatives are not afraid of the military. The fear is of the ATF - a most useless organization.
All my brothers in arms & harms way would be very welcome here in Adarian,Mi. There are ally ways that would come close to what they would face in Iraq. AND NO MORON MAYOR to try to stop them either!
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