Posted on 03/17/2007 4:22:21 PM PDT by weldgophardline
We took our Support The Troops Float to Ft. Collins for the St. Paddys parade to counter the leftists hate march in the parade. Here is what our float looked like.
Very nice! I bet it got cheers and waves all along the parade route. God bless our troops, and all who support them and their mission.
It was kind of sad to put that in a great parade.
Post more pix please. I have an old lefty friend who teaches college English there and I'd like to see if he's in the crowd.
I've got a load of pictures and will post them later tonight.
Thank you weldgophardline.
My wife (Ex) and I drove from Bakersfield to Ft. Collins back in he early '90's to attend Dan's Bake Sale (any body remember?) Nice town, very clean. And you had a VERY NICE float! Thanks for expressing the majority opinion so well! Wish I'd been there. Thanks for the pics.
Fort Collins is a very nice, all-American town, although it's been 30 years since I was there. It's sickening to think pinkos would have any visibility there whatsoever, much less a presence in the town.
Thank for showing your pictures.
Great float.
Thank you
Great float, weld. Thanks for going out and flying the colors.
I couldn't make it to DC but I was getting calls from FReepers there who were giving me reports which I then posted on the GOE Live Thread. I almost felt like a blogger!
Keep those CO Commies on the run!
Thank you for putting your footprints on your beliefs.
The peace-niks
And now for the good guys:
The crowd was huge. Whole families stood with their hands on their hearts as the Veterans passed. My jaw still hurts from grinning. There is still a hometown patriotism alive and well, no matter what the peaceniks say.
Ping!
Wow! Wonderful job on the float and great photos.
Here's FireEngineRed, WeldGOPhardline and TRTeamer decorating the float the evening before the parade:
TRTeamer, with the Marine Color Guard in the background with their prized WWII jeep:
The float, raring to go. Most of the large photos were taken in Iraq by Red's and Weld's Marine Corps son:
An older vet riding on the float, with his canine buddy:
These young heroes, all local hometown heroes, are the reason for this float. The soldier in the center - Tyler Mackenzie - gave his life for his country on Nov 2, 2005, near Baghdad:
The VFW color guard led the way, with the fife & drum corps behind them, and the float behind that. There were also a number of us walking alongside and behind the float:
After the parade, a number of us attended the noon-to-1PM "Support Our Troops" rally that we've faithfully been holding every Saturday since October, 2001. ("We" being the VFW, Freepers, parents of active service members, and many other troop supporters):
The leftists across the street with their UN flag, and their usual signs that promote their usual delusions. Eg, that this is really all about "Oil Gluttony". Or that 9/11 was an inside job orchestrated by the White House. Or that denouncing the mission of our armed forces and saying "bring them home now!" will really make our soldiers feel loved and appreciated and supported. Or that merely making more of an effort to talk rather than fight will solve most of the world's problems and end terrorism quicker than you can say "flower power". Or that once an innocent civilian gets killed, any war immediately loses its legitimacy and must be ended right there. And that's just the tip of the iceberg with these folks.
The float was a big hit with the VFW as well as the crowd. Usually only a small number of vets walk in a color guard in any given parade. But with Weld's and Red's float a part of the equation this time, the older vets who can't walk, and some female VFW regulars were able to ride the float. The two rows of folding chairs running up and down both sides of it were packed. And they all expressed over and over again how much they appreciated the float. They're now trying to get the float to return for the CSU Homecoming Parade this fall.
And the crowd loved us! We couldn't stop smiling the whole time. Lots of applause, cheers, and little kids waving at us. A lot of the vets were very moved, having not seen such an enthusiastic reception in quite awhile, if ever.
I only heard one sour note ("Bring them home now!") from a kook I recognized (she believes 9/11 was an inside White House job). I yelled back, "Yes! After they complete their mission!"
I still have a Dan's Bakesale Tshirt in mint condition.
Good job! Up the Irish.
Great job!
Absolutely Great!! Thanks for the work you all did to show support for the troops.
I assume the media reported it correctly, not like here in D.C.
[Mr] T
Wrong assumption (mostly). Freepers and the VFW did a first-rate job of countering the anti-military types in 2 of the 3 events they held on Saturday. So which event did the local paper give huge splashy front page coverage to? To the 3rd event of course!
The best we got were a couple of lines buried deep in a story on page B-1 re the St. Pat's Day parade (that ended at 11AM). None of the photos showed our float, but the reporter did have a couple of lines from a woman riding on the "support the troops float" that were great.
As for the weekly "dueling demonstrations" on opposite sides of the street that have been going on from 12-1 every Saturday since Oct 2001, there was no mention, as usual. (For the record, we had about the same number of participants on both sides this week. I've long said that it's the presence of OUR side of the street that makes this an unworthy news story to the local media organs, and that if our side ever missed a week, there will immediately be a front page story with huge photos about the brave souls on the opposite side who have faithfully been here for 5+ years, yadda yadda yadda, with no mention of us.)
So anyway, between 11 and 12 on Saturday, the leftists held a third event - a little (under 50 people, according to the paper) get-together led by 4 democRAT state reps railing against the Axis of Evil (Bush Cheney Rove Halliburton) and their evil war against humanity. We weren't there to counter them, because we didn't even have time to take down the float and still make it on time to the weekly noon rally. So I should have known, that on the local paper's front page, the headlines were about this one event held by the local leftists, plus one re the DC event that was spun hugely in favor of the national leftwing.
Maddening!
As for our little tit for tat with the Boulder Daily Camera. Dale and I are upping the ante tomorow. Anyone who has a spare hour or two is welcome to join us. We are going to hold a Free Press bake sale outside the Daily Camera Building in Boulder at 10:30 AM tomorow.
Proceeds to the bake sale will go to pay for the publishing of the videos of the gathering of eagles that was not published with Jeff Cushings story. I plan to offer him the money as payment for his time, as the daily camera feels he is just to overwhelmed and underpaid to get the story right. I'm uploading a video response to his video on you tube as I type.
Here is my blog entry on it:
http://www.naturalfamilyblog.com/archives/000776.html
And a picture of my Free Press Cookies - Yes, that is a FP on the red star cookie as a form of irony....
Freedom of the Press Cookies. I chose a red star to depict our American Press because they are about as left as our Communist Friends who had no free press in the various societies where Government controlled what the masses heard. Fortunately as citizen journalists we can publish our own take on things and do not have to read and watch only one side of the story. These cookies will be sold at a bake sale tomorow in front of the daily camera building, one of the most UN-free presses in America. "Training our interns in the worst that journalism has to offer its readers".
Jenny Hatch
PS Hey, card carry, I would love to see you and your family again, any chance you could join us in Boulder tomorow? we only plan to hold the bake sale for 30 minutes or so.
The video was published this morning on the Daily Camera Web Site. It was so one sided, I had to laugh as I watched it. Here is the first of three clips rebutting Jeffs Movie. (I did one take and the file was 250 MB - so had to cut it into three pieces)
Quick links:
Cushing Rebuttal #1 (Yes, for the curious I was sitting in my pajamas while I made this movie - we bloggers have a certain stereotype to uphold!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG-xtHNSAmg
Cushing Rebuttal #2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oromd_uZvJA
Cushing Rebuttal #3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdXXu7_aCW4
Anyone want to join us for a fun morning of demonstrating against the Daily Camera with a BAKE SALE?
We'll be at the daily Comrade/Camera building at 10:30 and sell cookies for a half hour! Come have a little fun.
Jenny Hatch
Gathering of Eagles Bake Sale
http://www.naturalfamilyblog.com/archives/000779.html
Jenny
I was in Dallas all week, so I didn't see you on the local nightly news down there. But I assume your event was well covered by the Denver news media?
Which reminds me, have snowballs' chances in hell improved lately?
Ha!
Great video. Keep up the good work.
We'll have to pick the brains of other veteran sidewalk Freepers for their best ideas. Eg the DC Freepers, the Fresno Freepers, the Columbia Freepers, and many others who have participated in Operation Freeps nationwide.
Once discussions are started, we'll have to decide what to keep online and what to take offline, given the fact that our FR postings are monitored by The Dark Side Of The Force. Activities such as brainstorming for sign ideas, chant ideas, song parodies, skits, etc, probably should be kept open, so as to attract the largest number of inputs. Freepers in general, whether street activists or not, are some of the most creative, funny, imaginative people in the world, and are a tremendous resource for coming up with great ideas for street activism.
OTOH, communications re where and when to meet should probably be kept offline, so as to prevent countermeasures used against us to keep us out of sight of the media.
Dale Lanham has just been asked to be the Colorado Contact for The National Gathering of Eagles movment. He is going to run with this organizational effort in Colorado, but you are right, planning some serious street theatre around the denver convention should be FUN!
I'm not afraid of the dark forces of the underbelly of the beast reading my stuff, but if you want to privately email me, please feel free.
Jenny
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