Official After-Action Thread: March 19 Fayetteville, NC Support Our Troops Rally

Freepers, lurkers and assorted patriots ^ | March 19, 2005 | Constitution Day

[Constitution Day]

Today we met in Fayetteville, NC to Freep a motley rabble of socialists, anarchists, Code Pink-os, and other throwbacks to the 60's! As usual, we were well outnumbered by their hordes of college students, aging hippies and other bused-in protestors, but we held our own as always.

Please post any reports and observations on this thread only.

[Tax-chick]

but still I think 3,000 sounds way too high.

My husband (who's one cup of coffee ahead of me this morning), has nailed this, I think. The best reports put our numbers at 200, which is what Huber estimates came and went throughout the day.

If the police are doing the same for the leftists' numbers, total arrivals during the day, then they even counted some of us, when we went to the park to use the facilities!

[cf_river_rat]

Thank you. It was 2 AM here and I was well into the bottle of rum i bought on the way home for "medicinal purposes".

The reason I was so jazzed by this pic is that the man-hair-cut on the left was wearing press credentials and had moved that young blond woman almost to tears. I shouted her down but FPD wouldn't make her leave. Marxist "Journalist"

Concerning your tag line...I had already noticed it on other threads and had heard comments in the media concerning that irony (C. Krauthammer maybe? I dunno). Anyhow, one of the signs I carried at this Freep said "YOU DISHONOR THE BLOOD OF PATRIOTS. I guess we own that color now, like it or not. I'm going to start using it to illustrate the sacrifices of the red states to prop up the blue.

This is not my sign. I don't know who to give credit for it but I cracked up.

Medium Resolution

Can anyone post a pic of the 82nd Airborne sign from this Freep? I think it was the best one there.

[Flyer]

Great job!

[Tax-chick]

Can anyone post a pic of the 82nd Airborne sign from this Freep? I think it was the best one there.

I think that was AQGeiger's sign. You can see it in one of the group photos showing the MOAB.

Next time, I think we should chant, "Bless your hearts ... Have a nice day!"

[cf_river_rat]

My block estimate put us at 175-200 when the unwashed were standing at the park gate waiting to get searched. We had all returned from the "ambush point" and many were lined up facing them chanting "Swim to Cuba". I was standing near the podium against the fence and could see all around our area.

If we use their math I can safely predict we will double our numbers to 1,000 next year.

I agree the 3000 figure from FPD included us. It was probably a "total crowd size" estimate, and sounds exaggerated to me.

[JFK_Lib]

Oh, man, that is too spooky for me!

[jslade]

[Huber]

Good morning. Ahem...When do we get to see more pix, Dudes!?!

[cf_river_rat]

I think it would be great to have the FReeps and the PW working together. Again, thanks for the great time.

I think it would be great too. Thank you for attending, you guys really added to our impact.

Medium Resolution

Medium Resolution

[tgslTakoma]

Here's what the NY Times had to say about the Fayetteville protest...

"In Fayetteville, N.C., near Fort Bragg, the home of the 82nd Airborne Division and many of the special-forces units fighting in Iraq, 2,000 people, including veterans and families of service members, rallied in a park to hear speeches against the war. About 100 simulated coffins covered with American flags were on the ground. The tenor of the day was somber, with many references to the war dead."

Somber, my arse! More than a few of their speakers said "F*** Bush," "That S** of a Bit**, Bush," and other equally somber comments.

Oh, and then there was the "performance artists" doing the BDU strip-tease and throat slashing to some hip-hoppy tune. That was also very somber, if you want to believe the NYT.

And when one of their speakers, the guy who said he was an Iraq Veteran against the war, started talking about another Iraqi veteran just back from Iraq who went into a nightclub and said he wanted to hear songs about slitting throats and blowing up people and killing civilians...

...When I heard that, I told the folks on our side that it won't be long now before the protesters pull out the "babykiller" insults and start spitting on our soldiers again - just like they did during the Vietnam war.

They do not support our troops in any shape, manner, or form; and we all need to continue hammering them on that.

Note: To read the whole NYT article, and look at the photos (2) of the Fayetteville "peace" rally, you must be registered. Use member id "doppler08" and password "doppler"

[Just A Nobody]

"but still I think 3,000 sounds way too high."

Cannel 14, News 14 Carolina, said around 2500 protestors.

[Huber]

Doctor Raoul suggests that we have signs prepared for when the buses depart. The signs should read "See you again next year!" Perhaps we could preface them with "Bless your Hearts" and accompanying graphics!

[cf_river_rat]

Michael Hoffman, a co-Founder of Iraq Veterans Against the War who invaded Iraq in 2003 with the Marines, be didn't think anti-war protests undermine the morale of troops facing danger, Hoffman said.

"I've been in Iraq, I've been shot at, you're not thinking about the protests, you're not thinking about yellow ribbons, you're thinking about 'how am I going to get out of this?'" he said.

Spoken like a true coward. He should have said "I was thinking about", not "you're thinking about"

Yellowbellied scumbag

[Diva Betsy Ross]

I saved the photo on my server. I will freep mail the URL so you can use it when ever you like.

I don't think i got to meet you .

:[ Next time!

[Taxman]

I really, really wish I could have joined you in Fayetteville.

Glad it was a most successful FReep!

[Diva Betsy Ross]

Good point.

[TaxRelief]

Counterdemonstrators send message to troops

By Kevin Maurer
Staff writer


Ed Fisher stood at Woodside Avenue and Hay Street clutching a handmade sign to show his support for his wife.

She is deployed to Iraq with Fort Bragg's 1st Corps Support Command.

Fisher said he talked with her by telephone Friday night about the anti-war rally scheduled for Saturday. She told him soldiers are proud of the people who show up to counter the war protesters.

''I am here to support the troops," Fisher said.

He and about 200 other people met at 11 a.m. Saturday on the high ground across from Rowan Park in Fayetteville to show their support for American soldiers and the mission in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was a counterdemonstration to Saturday's anti-war rally in the park. The counterdemonstrators - from members of a group called Free Republic to military family members to bikers from Rolling Thunder, a POW-MIA advocacy group - called the spot where they stood the ''American Zone.''

''We learned from Vietnam. No one answered their protests then," said Lynn Huber, a chapter chairwoman for the Old North State chapter of the Free Republic.

This is the second year in a row an anti-war rally on the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq has drawn a counterdemonstration. Like rival sports fans, the groups tried to outyell each other as the war protesters marched from the Cumberland County Health Department to Rowan Park.

Scott Kerr drove from Greensboro to take part in the counterdemonstration. He held a sign that with a picture of the earth and the words ''Stop global whining."

''They have a right to protest, but it is totally disrespectful to the people that have their necks out there right now," Kerr said. ''Its disheartening that they would go to a military base."

The fact that the war protesters chose Fayetteville angered others as well.

''They came here to make our military families feel like there is a lack of support, and that is simply not the case," said Anne Hladtk. ''Why didn't they go where policy is made?"

Hladtk, who is 25, is married to a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division. He was sent to Baghdad to help provide security for the elections.

The protests reminded Diane Fanning of an earlier conflict. During the Vietnam War, she said, the protests had a negative effect on the morale of troops. She doesn't want that to happen again.

''These are the same types of people who protested against the war when my husband was over there," she said.

Last year, she was with her husband at the rally. He has since died, but she was back, armed this time with white foam hands - each with one finger dipped in purple paint. The hands were to remind people of the Iraqi election, during which voters had their fingers marked with ink. Fanning and other demonstrators said the election showed that Americans are making progress in Iraq.

''Eight million Iraqis gave Saddam the finger," she and others chanted.

Response to march

The counterdemonstrators held signs and yelled slogans as the war protesters passed on their march to Rowan Park.

''Peace cannot be achieved by sitting and letting airplanes fly into your towers," yelled one of the "Freepers" - what the Free Republic members called themselves.

''Swim to Cuba. Free health care," yelled another.

Organizers kept the two sides apart. Emotions heated up when the war protesters carried cardboard coffins draped in American flags past the Freepers. The coffins were meant to symbolize North Carolina soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

''Those men fought for your freedom. Shame on you," Bill Huber yelled.

The anti-war activists' assertion that they support the troops by protesting the war fell on deaf ears. The counterdemonstrators argued that the protests were exactly the opposite.

''I don't think they really support the soldiers. I think what what they are doing here is energizing our enemies and demoralizing our troops," Daniel John Brady said.

He is a former Black Hawk helicopter crew chief in the 82nd Airborne Division. He got out of the Army in 1988 when he was paralyzed in an accident and confined to a wheelchair.

Everyone wants the soldiers to come home, he said, but not until the job is done in Iraq.

''I want them home as soon as possible," Brady said. ''Who is pro-war?"
-Fayetteville Observer, Sunday, March 20, 2005

[cf_river_rat]

"I want them home as soon as possible," Brady said. "Who is pro-war?"

This man deserves to be recognized as a hero and a patriot.

Medium Resolution

[upchuck]

When do we get to see more pix, Dudes!?!

Good question :) Tax-Relief has the flash card from my camera. Go to it, TR!

[TaxRelief]

Veteran's memories are fresh

By Kevin Maurer
Staff writer

Jim Szakmary said war protesters spat on him when he returned home from Vietnam in 1969.

He doesn't want the same thing to happen to the men and women fighting in Iraq.

Memories of his own homecoming brought him to Fayetteville, where he and and about 200 others offered a counterdemonstration to Saturday's anti-war rally at Rowan Park. Szakmary said he wanted soldiers to know that someone stands behind them.

It was important enough to him to drive 11 hours from his home on Long Island, N.Y. He arrived in Fayetteville about midnight, he said.

''After the 10th hour, I was really regretting it," he said.

He wore a black ''Vietnam Vets" cap and a camouflage jacket with his ribbons pinned on his chest as he stood with other demonstrators.

''I want the troops, if and when they see the newspaper, to see that there is another side to this story," he said.

Szakmary, who is 57 and is retired from his job as an air traffic controller, served with the 11th Marine Regiment from 1968 to 1969.

''I wish there was someone at the airport wearing his World War II or Korean War medals making a statement that he was glad to see me come home," he said.

Szakmary said the antiwar demonstrators don't understand what they are protesting and are wrapped up in nostalgia about the 1960s. Most weren't even born during the Vietnam War, he said.

''I think they are out there just having a picnic," he said.