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.
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These people are starting to act like they've already won the election.
Expect more of the same...
Let's ask someone who'd know.
...NBC's phone #, anyone?
...not anymore.
This is a sloppy story, so it’s hard to tell what’s really going on. The evidence of sloppiness is in the inconsistency in verb tenses in the lead graf, but more importantly in calling Marines “soldiers.” Here’s what I can gather:
The Marines requested permission for an urban warfare exercise. The mayor said he did not receive the request; he may or may not have told the truth. The marines showed up and were turned away.
What is absent from the story is whether the Marines received permission, or whether they did not hear back and forged ahead anyway. That is the critical fact, and it is missing.
If the latter, then the mayor was doing his job. You can’t just mount an exercise in a city neighborhood without warning residents and law enforcement that what appears to be urban combat is just an exercise. That is how folks get shot for no good reason.
Either way, someone dropped the ball. Either the city granted permission and someone didn’t make the appropriate preparations or tell the mayor, or the Marines failed to receive permission and went ahead anyway.
Remember what happened to the Berkley Bunch after some congressmen filed bills to withhold any federal funding from their city. The city quickly did an about face and issued a letter of apology. That leaves us a blueprint for Toledo and any other slimey little politicians who try and defame our troops. Pressure should be applied to the Michigan governor and let the s*** roll downhill.
“We need more contact info about who is responsible for this travesty. I have a fax machine with free long distance, I’ll be happy to pass on my disdain for this kind of action.
Berkeley California is getting a different fax about their stupidity every hour on the hour.”
Thanks for your efforts, leofl! You are a great American!
As we know, in the dem world inhabited by most journalists in the mainstream media, he would be described as a “freedom fighter” or possibly an “insurgent”—not an “enemy combatant”!
Finkbeiner?
This is from the Onion, right?
a fitting name..
Hey, the conservatives can sit out the election and then the whole country will look like this.
Did he put the Marines on "Double Secret Probabtion"?
I am sending the Mayor an e mail at this moment. I grew up in Jenison, MI which is 10 miles West of Grand Rapids, MI. A young man whose name is Jason Derks is the youngest son of my neighbors. He was in this unit and has seen duty in Iraq. It was not long ago when his parents received a phone call advising them their son had been in a Humvee and the vehicle was hit by an IED. Jason was severely wounded and has since been granted a medical discharge from the Marine Corps. Certainly, members of this unit have given more to their country than this Mayor has ever provided to the city he leads or the dog he owns.
How any elected official can possess the temerity to turn away our nations finest young men is beyond me. Certainly, the City of Toledo and the State of Ohio have seen many of its own brave men and women serve their country with honor and dignity. Many of them paid the ultimate sacrifice.
I wonder if the Mayor of Dearborn would pay more respect to our Armed Forces than the Mayor of Toledo. The sad thing is....why do I have to wonder about that?
I am sending the Mayor an e mail at this moment. I grew up in Jenison, MI which is 10 miles West of Grand Rapids, MI. A young man whose name is Jason Derks is the youngest son of my neighbors. He was in this unit and has seen duty in Iraq. It was not long ago when his parents received a phone call advising them their son had been in a Humvee and the vehicle was hit by an IED. Jason was severely wounded and has since been granted a medical discharge from the Marine Corps. Certainly, members of this unit have given more to their country than this Mayor has ever provided to the city he leads or the dog he owns.
How any elected official can possess the temerity to turn away our nations finest young men is beyond me. Certainly, the City of Toledo and the State of Ohio have seen many of its own brave men and women serve their country with honor and dignity. Many of them paid the ultimate sacrifice.
I wonder if the Mayor of Dearborn would pay more respect to our Armed Forces than the Mayor of Toledo. The sad thing is....why do I have to wonder about that?
Just a word concerning Mayor F’s comment about the Marines “frightening people”.
I live in what I consider the safest place in this country. I am in a neighboring city to Oceanside and as the crow flies about 7 miles from the border of Camp Pendleton. The Marines train near my house regularly. To have the USMC as my neighbor has been one of the greatest blessings of my life. (I have a number whom I know personally that live on my block.)
When I walk into Walmart or a grocery store and see the signature buzz cut it makes me proud to be an American. To hear or see the Marines training still gives me the chills every time, because I know that at any time any one of them would take a bullet without hesitation for me.
I am not the least bit “frightened” of any of America’s finest, I am safe because of them.
Mayor F. only an enemy of America should be frightened of a Marine. If they aren’t then our Marines haven’t done their duty. Mayor F. what does this make you?
The mayor should be recalled...pure and simple. This DhimmiRat Lib BS is getting out of hand.
Good people need to stand up against this kind of socialist crap and put these stinking bastards in their place. The good people of Toledo need to address this moral shortcoming of their elected officials, quickly.
Lock and Load.
Ping. E-mail this mayor and givem’ an Irish earful.
I believe I’m too afraid to ever visit Toledo and spend any money.
That name is just too complicated and confusing to keep typing, I nominate that it be shortened to
:MAYOR FINK
That should be Mayor RAT FINK.
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