After Action Report: Pro Solomon Amendment Rally at U.S. Supreme Court

Try this link to album if pictures do not post correctly in thread. They are not in any particular order. Follow number sequence after the "DC2005xx.jpg" pic name.

http://photobucket.com/albums/c325/trooprally/?action=view&current=DC20051.jpg
great post [Mrs]

If you still can't open pictures, try right clicking pic symbol, then click 'view image'. That should bring up pictures.

ping

Thanks for the report. Looks like you Pearl Harbored the left.

A fine looking and brave bunch of young people. It does this old heart good to see you young people taking up the battle. One World War in a lifetime is enough for me. Thank you for standing up for America and for all of us who can't get to D.C. God bless you.

Great report and great pictures! Go, Trooprally(s)!

What is the Solomon Amendment?

You are 'right'. The lefties don't expect a counter demonstrations, so we need to stay on them. Don't give them sidewalk time without us being there!!

Thanks for your service. While the troops are overseas, this is our "front line". All the troops need is whatever support one can give, some can brave the cold, some make donations and send cards, or whet ever. It all adds up!

Solomon Amendment, I believe it was passed in the Clinton years, is about not giving schools government funding if they do not allow recruiters onto the campus. The left says that the military's "don't ask - don't tell" policy is anti-gay, which is against some schools anti-discrimination policy. So they don't want recruiters on campus. But they are using the policy as an anti-war policy.

This is yet another good reason to completely privatize all levels of education in this country. Cut the government purse strings completely at the national, state, and local level. No Solomon Amendment, no other amendment, no strings attached when there's no government funding in the first place.

No good campus would ban military recruiters (or CIA recruiters). However, most campuses aren't good, these days. Nonetheless, rest assured that anyone truly interested in the military would not let a lack of recruiters on campus stop him.

What a great report!!!

You all did a great job and in the cold too. At least it looked very cold from the pictures.

I am also relieved to know the reporters were there for the talking heads, not the VAWN of the Dead.

Awesome FReep!

Nice report and photos. Great FReep!

If this works right, below should appear the report with the photos embedded. The problem was that you listed the source of the image as the URL of the web page with a given photo, instead of designating the source as the URL of the photo itself.

As we discussed, when you have a photo that you want to embed in your report, you have to right click on the photo and select properties. Copy and paste the address (URL) of the photo itself. Use that as the image source, NOT the URL listed in the address bar of the web page on which the photo appears.

The result of the error was that an extra ?action=view&current= appeared in each image source and messed it up.

Beyond correcting that, I also added paragraph breaks to keep photos on different lines and resized the last photo so that the report does not require horizontal scroll bars on most displays when viewing the report.

Great job! You're well on your way to posting photos.

MR. TROOPRALLY'S REPORT WITH EMBEDDED PHOTOS

Tuesday, Dec. 6,2005, U.S. Supreme Court

[If you cannot view pictures in thread, I posted album link. The pictures are in no particular order, so look numer in "DC2005xx.jpg" pic name for order. Still a newbie in posting pics in a thread.]

We, [Mr & Mrs] trooprally (We share the 'trooprally' screen name) arrived at the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C. about 11:50 AM.ready to counter protest the noon time anti Solomon Amendment/antiwar protesters.

We were greeted by about 50 Media people with cameras all set up. Boy I thought to myself, this is going to be BIG.

and

Looking around we could not make out any battle lines, or any one except media people. At noon two college looking 'kids' (Hey, were over 50, everyone looks like a kid!) came up to us and asked if we were there to counter protest. I guess the give away was the Marine Corps cap I was wearing. Finally, contact!! (The pass word was 'lefties suck'). In talking to them, we found out that one was a FReeper and they were George Washington College Republicans. They expected support from Protest Warriors and the Leadership Institute.

At 12:10 or so, still no battle line had formed, but this was from lack of people on both sides. And the media started to pack up! I asked a cameraman what was up. He said that everyone had already talked about 11:30. Now I was really confused. Did we miss something? Only later did I learn that he was talking about the talking heads who listened to the Solomon Amendment arguments. The total time that the Justices heard arguments was about an hour.

But something that we missed in the massive media crowd were the 3 protesters that had showed up. They were mumbling "What do we do now Moe??"

At about 12:30, with the media now down to 10 or so, the now "Not-So-Manificant-Seven" protesters started to hold up their signs at the bottom of the steps.

So we got to work. The four of us split forces and flanked them, making it hard for the media to take pictures without showing us. The media even took some pictures of our signs. The black/white foam board signs were from the Friday night Walter Reed FReeps and the colored "Vote Yes For The Solomon Amendment" were made the night before. We had more signs at the ready in the bag that I was carrying.

Soon, both groups grew. The protesters numbered about 27 from several organizations, of which 5 were 'guest'

Our group numbered 15, FReepers included [Mr & Mrs] Trooprally and Christopher Lincoln, GW College Republicans, the Leadership Institute, Protest Warriors and one walk by (Lady with microphone) who joined us part way through out counter rally.

The protesters set up a sound system and started spouting their lies. And they were vicious lies. The military is worst than the Nazis, the military uses an 'economic draft' (as if the poor are stupid and can only go to college by joining the service) to recruit people, phosphorous is the 'new' chemical weapon that the U.S. is using, the military massacred Iraqis at Falluja, our troops are the terrorists.

And the speakers were very vindictive in their passion. They talked like Hitler to the Brown Shirts. These kids are the real ones that need to be watched. They are real anarchists. Code Pinkers are pussy cats compared to these people.

But our group did fluster them in their efforts. We surrounded them for a while and interrupted their speeches when they lied with the truth.

and our guy with back to camera

Part of our group showed our signs to passerbys and the cars and received a lot of thumbs up and honks. We even had a bull horn and occasionally drowned out their sound system. We sang several songs, the Marine Corps Hymn and The Star Spangled Banner was my best. Towards the end of our rally, we said the Pledge of Allegiance at the Supreme Court's flag.

More pics:

We also got several people of our group interested in FR. One student who just moved to the area said that she'll be at our Friday Walter Reed rallies.

For the D.C. FReepers, LLLLuuuke was there on his bike and so was Malachy Kilbride, the person who accosted tgslTakoma. Both seemed to leave soon after they recognized us, especially Kilbride. He did a double take when he recognized [Mrs] Trooprally, who was trying to take his picture, and bugged out soon afterwards.

I learned two lessons from this rally. WE NEED TO INTERACT WITH OTHER GROUPS THAT SUPPORT OUR TROOPS. There is strength in numbers. No one group can organize a quick counter rally. But if all of the like minded groups send even a few people, we look stronger.

The second lesson is that we can't let the left have a protest without someone countering them. The general public needs to know that we are out there. Otherwise the public will withdrawal their visible support of our troops and our president. I'm glad to read about FReepers countering the antiwar demonstrations from the right coast to the left coast.

The pictures were taken by [Mrs] Trooprally. Don't worry about her not being in any pictures. Her interview during the Sept. 24/25 anti Cindy She-Shrew rally in D.C. was on TV by the local FOX news , and her pic was on Tony Snow's web site during She-Shrew's October die-in in D.C.

Thanks to both of you for being there!

Great job M/M Trooprally!!

I had almost forgotten about this. Good to hear you were there to counter them!

Thanks Bill!

Now that I at least have one step under my belt, your reminder makes more sense. I must have had too many rum & cokes when we went over it at the Christmas Party.

Speaking of the Christmas Party, are either of you going to do an AAR of it?

Just practicing the two lessons mentioned in the AAR. Having to be responsible only to myself in my business, luckily I can get away with afternoon activities like this and work later that night.

Pictures Here