This text has also been posted on my Veteran's message board concerning a ride I took with some Rolling Thunder buddies to Walter Reed on Sept 30.
The Free Republic website has an interesting account of the evening at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1498123/posts
Code Pink's website reports a different perspective of the same evening at http://www.codepinkalert.org/article.php?id=524
It's interesting to read Code Pink's account "However, apparently, as Mr. Sampley had not been able to disrupt the vigil by himself, he called in reinforcements. Half a dozen bikers arrived with their loud engines and parked along one corner of the vigil in the hopes of blocking our signs." and "The administration does not want an action even this small to continue. It has unleashed its dogs to do everything possible to break up the vigil. So far, they have failed. The actions of their biker stooges this Friday night only call attention to how desperate they are to make us go away."
As a participant, I don't recall anyone from the Administration being involved organizing this evening... I learned about Rolling Thunder's plans to drop in 10 days earlier as a response to Code Pink's reported use of cardboard coffins on the sidewalks outside of the hospital. Please refer to my earlier posts on this thread on the topic.
So, I guess we weren't the administration's 'stooges', and weren't 'reinforcements', as noted in the Code Pink account. These inconsistencies make me wonder what else they're wrong about...
I would also like to note a glaring omission from Code Pink's write-up. We carried a Gulf War veteran, a Marine amputee, with us. He rode in on the back of a trike to make his own stand. Even though he walked across the street and spoke with the Code Pink folks for quite some time, it seems that he was not worthy of being mentioned in their account. He was not supportive of Code Pink or their 'vigil'.
I myself spent some time talking with one of the demonstrators, who started quoting numerous figures and numbers about the numbers of troops returning from Vietnam who opposed the war there. He asked me what I thought about that, and I responded that I had never heard those figures, and that I would have to verify them for myself.
He denied that any Vietnam veterans were ever treated poorly in this country, and explained that the peace protesters helped the military by forcing the withdrawal. I explained that the anti-war sentiment in this country was largely focused upon the returning veteran (not against the policymakers, or the conditions that led up to our involvement in Vietnam), and that I have spoken with several vets who have provided firsthand accounts of being poorly treated upon their return. He was totally unconvinced that these things had ever happened, and believed that these accounts were all lies. I then explained to him that a substantial share of the treatment of returning Vietnam veterans could be attributed to a single individual who happened to single-handedly do more to cause pain and suffering for American POWs during Vietnam than anyone else, and he was thrown off guard when I explained that Senator Kerry's testamonies to Congress (while still a commissioned officer in the Navy) provided a great deal of fuel for the media flame against returning vets, and that his testamony was used by the North Vietnamese when they were interrogating American POWs, and that he is considered a hero by the government of North Vietnam.
I refused to pass judgement concerning the current conflict in Iraq, and pointed out that if Code Pink is truly concerned with the troops (as they claim), they should consider the divisive nature of their actions, and consider the danger of sending a divisive message, and that the venue of a military hospital is totally inappropriate.
I suppose I'm one of the bikers who Code Pink was referring to when they said "Some vigilers did engage in conversations with some of these bikers who alleged that they were opposed to the war but supported the troops. They refused to acknowledge that that was precisely the stand of the vigil so it is difficult to take them at their word."
I did not see any coffins on the sidewalk on this evening, but remain completely unconvinced that they are in the slightest way concerned with supporting the troops. Their stated objectives are to improve the living conditions of the military by improving benefits, and to bring the troops home NOW. During the entire Friday evening, I did not see a single member of Congress or a single Senator drive past. Since their weekly vigils began March 30, Code Pink has yet to learn that war policy is neither made, nor altered, at a hospital.
After the Code Pink folks retreated from their corners (while singing "We Shall Not Be Moved"), we rode to Fran O'Brien's (where the wounded troops are treated to dinner on Friday) to mix and mingle with the remaining troops. Not a single Code Pink person was there to show their support for the troops, and I suspect that we received a far warmer welcome by the patrons of Fran O'Brien's back room than Code Pink would have.
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Oct2004/n10162004_2004101603.html
http://www.stripesonline.com/article.asp?section=104&article=27774&archive=true
Enjoyed meeting you at the FReep and trading statistics! You pointed out that smoking kills approximately 560 times as many Americans per year as those lost in the Iraq combat:
(CDC statistics:)
Deaths from Smoking: 440,000 annual deaths each year are smoking-associated... 440,000 per year, 36,666 per month, 8,461 per week, 1,205 per day, 50 per hour... An estimated 400,000 deaths each year are caused directly by cigarette smoking.
One of the signboards on the FReep side of the street isn't used often because it is "too wordy" to be seen by passing cars. It cites the number of U.S. deaths from vehicle accidents each year: 43,000, and the number of babies killed in U.S. abortions each year: 1,370,000. Further research reveals that the number of babies killed by legal, reported abortions peaked at 1,429,247 in 1990, and had trended downward to approximately 854,000 per year in the U.S. by 2001.
Kind of puts the Pinko's whines about volunteer and career military deaths in perspective. According to iCasualties.org, the U.S. has lost an average of 782 per year since the onset of the Iraq war in March 2003. (Some of those were due to vehicular accidents or deaths of personnel from other causes that occurred while in Iraq.)
To summarize:
Deaths per year, U.S.
Abortions...................854,000
Smoking-related:.........440,000
Vehicular.....................48,000
Combat in Iraq..................782
Thanks for coming to Walter Reed, for 'dialoging' with the Pinkos, and for writing such a comprehensive report.
That was written by Bruce "Comic Book Guy" Wolf. He's a dedicated commie who up until CodePinko cleaned up their PR was carrying a sign that read right from the Kremlin Handbook, "Soldiers and Workers United". After he protests the troops at Walter reed, he heads up Georgia Ave to the AFI theater to catch the midnight screening of "Potemkin".
The commies don't write about what happened, they write about what they wished happened. Cindy Sheehan does a lot of that. Inparticular, an Iraqi vet a month or so ago politely made his point that he and probably even Casey don't agree and don't appreciate what she's doing. By the time Cindy was done, the guy her friend, was calling her "mom" and giving her a hug. I believe he was respectful but I doubt the other stuff happened.
That's total left wing BS. I was still in grade schol and I remember Guardsmen passing in trucks being called "warmongers".
Code PINK says tio America, "We Support The Troops, Bring Them Home", but as endorsers and participants in the World Tribunal on Iraq and the Belgium Communique, they tell the "resistance" that the have right to kill our troops, that to do so is not only legitimate, but justified.
As for Veterans For Peace, I have a photo of a VFP members participating in a May Day (commie holiday) Parade with one wearing a North Vietnamese pith helmet ala Jane Fonda. That's all you need to know about where VFP's sympathies lie.
Code PINKO and another radical front group tradiong on the military's good name, MFSO, carried coffins to Walter Reed and hung black wreaths on the fence, all while using loudspeakers in a hospital zone back on March 15, 2004. Our boy Comic Book Man carried a flag drapped coffin while "counter-recruiting" at the Army's Enlistment Office 3 miles up Georgia Ave. As Code PINKO is helping fill those coffins, I asked him if he was doing a victory lap. I also mentioned that if you're over 50 and wearing denim and tie die headband it's not a fashion statement, it's a flashback.
Their stated objectives are to improve the living conditions of the military by improving benefits, and to bring the troops home NOW.
They didn't care about VA Beneifts and all the rest last year or anytime prior and if the war ended tomorrow, they wouldn't care the day after. They only SAY they care because the public does. And because they are lying to the soldiers at Reed hoping to atrract a convert they can use for propoganda.
Outside the "counter-recruitment" up the Avenue, I asked the person holding the "Up VA Benefits" sign if we could transfer excess funds from the EPA. Code PINKO are mostly radical left Green Party, hate the US, enviromental tree hugging, hand wringing, bed wetting types, so it was no surprise when the fangs came out and the hissing started in response to my simple question. I mean there wasn't even a second of civil discourse, disagreement or discusion because I had cahllenged his core beliefs.
As my sign says, "CODE PINK WOMEN FAKE IT."