Monday, February 19, 2007

"Gathering of Eagles" to protect Vietnam Veterans Wall

Local "Gathering of Eagles" Support the Troops Rally to be held in Staunton on March 17th


"… An eagle knows when a storm is approaching long before it breaks. The eagle will fly to some high spot and wait for the winds to come. When the storm hits, it sets its wings so that the wind will pick it up and lift it above the storm. While the storm rages below, the eagle is soaring above it."

There are plans around the country to counter the anti-war protesters who will be out on Saturday, March 17, 2007, to protest the 4th anniversary of the U.S.A.'s entry into Iraq, Operation Iraqi Freedom, in the continuing war on terrorism.

Here in Staunton we plan to be out that day to defend our home turf. Much as I would love to be in D.C. with all those veterans defending the Vietnam Wall from the anti-war, anti-America crowd, I feel the need to organize and participate in the local event.

Please come out and show public support even if it's only for 30 minutes. This is your opportunity to show the world there is a Silent Majority that is not being represented by the mainstream media, that is not being heard by the Democrats, that is not being heard by terrorists around the world.

Please plan to join us in downtown Staunton on Saturday, March 17, 2007, at 12:00 Noon.

If you have one bring an American flag and/or a Support the Troops sign to show that we support the troops, the mission, and the President.

Bring your WIN THE WAR signs!

We will meet at the Augusta County Courthouse on the corner of Johnson and Augusta Streets.

Free parking will be available in the Wharf parking lot (diagonally across street from Courthouse), the Johnson Street parking garage (one-and-a-half blocks from Courthouse), or New Street parking garage (one block from Courthouse; minimal fee to park).

The national gathering in D.C. is called the "Gathering of Eagles." We will have a small town version of that. Here is the notice about the national event.


GATHERING OF EAGLES
"Gathering of Eagles" to protect Vietnam Veterans Wall
By C.J. Raven
U.S. Veteran Dispatch
February 07, 2007

Leftist activists who march to the Pentagon next month will discover that their path won't be as clear as it has been in the past.

The group, led by Cindy Sheehan, Jane Fonda, Ed Asner and their ilk, plan to gather March 17 at the Vietnam Memorial Wall to begin a march to protest America's involvement in the Iraq war. The date marks the fourth anniversary of the war's beginning.

This time, however, protestors will see objectors if they spit on Iraqi veterans again, or throw paint on a war memorial. This time, they will encounter a buzz saw of Vietnam veterans and supporters who will gather to protect the Wall, and show their support for U.S. troops. The counter-protestors are calling themselves the Gathering of Eagles.

"… An eagle knows when a storm is approaching long before it breaks. The eagle will fly to some high spot and wait for the winds to come. When the storm hits, it sets its wings so that the wind will pick it up and lift it above the storm. While the storm rages below, the eagle is soaring above it."

An unknown author wrote that description, but it describes how the veterans see their mission. They are angry that the Wall is being used as a jumping off point for a political protest and they are gathering to protect it from another storm of anti-war activists.

"The anti-war/anti-America group cannot be allowed to use the Vietnam Memorial Wall as a back-drop to their anti-America venom and stain the hallowed ground that virtually cries out with blood at the thought of this proposed desecration ... it must not happen," said veteran Bud Gross. "… All Americans are invited to support our effort, which is intended as a defender of hallowed ground and intended as a non-violent competition between those that would sell out America and those of us who support freedom and keeping the fight with the enemy on distant shores."

The group defending the Wall will be wearing armbands to identify themselves. Those who are unable to stand with the defenders are being asked to wear armbands with small U.S. flags to show their own communities that they abhor the Fonda-Sheehan tactics.

"We'll be there to act as a countervailing force against the Cindy Sheehan-Jane Fonda march from the Vietnam Memorial to the Pentagon," retired Navy Capt. Larry Bailey said. "We will protect the Vietnam Memorial. If they try to deface it, there will be some violence, I guarantee you."

Bailey and thousands of his fellow Vietnam vets are worried that the anti-war protesters will damage the wall, just as they spray-painted the steps of the Capitol at their last march.

The wall is sacred to the men and women who fought in that war.

"It is our contact with our dead brothers -- those who lost their lives in the cause of their country," Bailey said.

And so it is that Washington will see a Gathering of Eagles - Americans determined to stand up against leftist propagandists who denigrate U.S. troops and the mission for which they sometimes sacrifice their lives.

Retired Col. Harry Riley organized the Gathering of Eagles. Organizers hope thousands will show up in Washington from as far away as Hawaii, and they won't only be Vietnam veterans. Families, friends and veterans of other wars, including Iraq, and soldiers still on active duty, will be there to defend the Wall.

"When we say a gathering of eagles, that signifies people who support the American way," Bailey said.

The leftist Web site MarchonPentagon.org: describes the anti-war demonstrators this way: "The March on the Pentagon has already attracted more than 1,500 endorsers, including prominent individuals and national and grassroots organizations. Students on college campuses and in high schools will be attending in large numbers. There will be a large turnout from the Muslim and Arab American community, which is organizing throughout the country."

The movement is well-financed. Its sponsor list is lengthy and contains highly recognizable names, as well as those of Fonda and Sheehan: · Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark (who offered his services to defend Saddam Hussein)· Ultra-liberal Congresswoman Maxine Waters· Former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney · Ron Kovic, Vietnam veteran and author of "Born on the 4th of July" · Mahdi Bray, executive director, Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation · Waleed Bader, vice chair of the National Council of Arab Americans and former president of Arab Muslim American Federation · Medea Benjamin, co-founder, CODEPINK and Global Exchange · Free Palestine Alliance · Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation · Islamic Political Party of America · FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front) · Islamic-National Congress · Gay Liberation Network · Muslim Student Association · Jibril Hough, chairman, Islamic Political Party of America

Retired Air Force Col. Smitty Harris, a former Vietnam POW, doesn't believe Fonda's protests carry the weight they once did. Harris says Fonda's actions at the march last month were "anti-American," just as they were in the 1970s, and won't have much effect on public opinion.

"It was big news during the Vietnam era when they had these marches ... because people didn't have all the alternative ways of finding out what is true and what's not," he recently told Agape Press. "So I don't think it's going to have a big effect." In fact, he says, it could even be counterproductive.

Today, Harris points out, Americans have talk radio and media outlets like the Fox News Channel to hear the voices of those who do not agree with Jane Fonda's point of view.

1 comment:

JTG said...

Spitting on veterans? Throwing paint on war memorials? Sorry, Sports fans - no violence, no spitting, no bottles of urine; and as to vandalism? Go look at that FRC video on how the Capitol was “defaced” at the last demo. The whole end-result of that horrifying anarchistic assault on our nation's sacred Capitol? Two already almost completely washed-out, faint and feeble stains a few inches across - both terminally ephemeral and less noticeable (and less damaging) than a good hit of classic Washington pigeon poop.

But you just gotta love how the sad old fantasy of "vile, violent, commie, hippie, anarchistic anti-american protestors" keeps re-running in these blogs. This worn-out trope left over from the old "stab-in-the-back" rewriting of how we lost the war in Vietnam follows point-by-point the pattern of the original stab-in-the-back loser fantasies of Ludendorff and all those embittered Freikorps cases of the Weimer years in Germany. Truly, it seems at times, there is nothing new under the sun.

What's really interesting though, is the eager - indeed, DROOLING - anticipation with which such fantasists as the GATHERING OF EAGLES crowd reports their expectations (read HOPES AND DREAMS) that maybe with just a little luck, ol' Hanoi Jane and Moonbat Cindy will oblige them by desecrating The Wall - and thus give the mighty mighty Eaglettes the excuse they dream of to unleash some mighty righteous cleansing violence.

Aint gonna happen, folks. What WILL happen is this: The protestors will assemble on the Mall, near The Wall (and other locations) and march and speak with the usual lack of violence, lack of vandalism, lack of outrageous behavior, lack of ... well pretty much complete lack of anything exciting. They’ll preach their old reliable sermons to their old reliable choir - then go quietly off to their old reliable self-satisfied, self-congratulatory post-demonstration dinners with their friends and families.

Then FOX will scour its footage for any sign of enthusiastic adolescents trying on their junior Sandinista acts (with the obligatory I'm-such-an-outlaw-anarchist bandanna covering their faces to keep them from being identified by the death-squads they dream of), and cherry-pick from their on-the-scene interviews the most outrageous quote they can find by some would-be "revolutionary" thrilled to ecstasy by the concept of some camera time. They’ll throw it on their evening news, or maybe, if it is stupid enough, into O'Reilly's hopper, or run it for Pat Buchanan to comment on, regarding how such rudeness and lack of hygene expose the un-Americanism of all anti-war demonstrators.

All this while the disappointed Eagles slowly un-Gather - but not before reassuring each other (and themselves) how if they had just seen THE LEAST LITTLE BIT OF!!! ... of whatever ... they really REALLY would have kicked some serious dirty hippie commie traitor ass this time.

Well, maybe next time, fellas. For now, though, just slip your stretched-out copy of FIRST BLOOD back in the VCR (or, better yet, MISSING IN ACTION?) - and spend another year muttering about how " we shoulda just bombed the whole fuckin country flat, paved it over and use for a parking lot" (as I remember the old phrasing, so popular in those endless barracks, bar and hooch bull-sessions).

Boo-YAH!

Same old circus all around; same old dog-and-pony show; same old signal-to-noise ratio.

Like bout 1-5.

Yawn.