Faxes and Emails To Mayors And Colleges Who Deny Military Training And Recruiting (Vanity)

JoeClarke.Net ^ | 02/12/2008 | JoeClarke.Net

[joeclarke]

I will be sending the following fax to Colleges, and Mayors such as Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner who unapologetically denied the U.S. Marines to train in his city because they "may scare the residents."

Enough of these losers who not only are praying that the United States does not prevail during the time of WAR, but they also would deny the military the ability to train and recruit in their cities!

[mmichaels1970]

I heard this morning that Finkbeiner is standing by his decision, and that anybody who questions his patriotism is a “baboon”.

[NTHockey]

“I heard this morning that Finkbeiner is standing by his decision, and that anybody who questions his patriotism is a “baboon”.”

Dear Mayor Baboon,

I not only question your patriotism, but also your sanity. You see, patriotism is more than waving a flag and mouthing nice things when you have to. It is a love of country; it is devotion to maintaining our American culture and it is certainly NOT being weak when strength is required.

I am a former marine with a son on active duty. My brother and my oldest son served in combat. So, your actions towards the Marines is cowardly and despicable. What say you?

[Bringbackthedraft]

Lets look at it in his shoes. If the Marines are going to use simulators and blanks, and the event is publicized, surely a crowd will gather. In that crowd you will have those in support of the Marines and those who oppose. Now we have a possible confrontation problem. We have to have the area closed off with barriers, additional police will be required, and the DOT will have to provide barriers and personnel. There will be a lot of distracting noises that will surely bring in additional people. Who is going to pay all the city employees? If anyone gets injured during this display, in any way related to it, who will handle the law suits? Who will pay for the damages? Its a lot more complicated than it appears on the surface. It may be a case of Mayoral responsibility more than a dislike of the USMC. That's just my opinion looking in from outside.

[mmichaels1970]

Its a lot more complicated than it appears on the surface.

The Marines have trained there at least three times in the last six years without incident. I think the last time was prior to their deployment to Iraq in 2004.

The former Chief of Police and Marine vet said that the mayor told him that he didn't want the Marines "playing war" in his city any more. The training exercises where cleared with the current Chief of Police who was never notified about the mayor's intention to stop them from "playing war".

The Marines were on their way to the drill when they were stopped and prevented from going further. The Marine in charge, tried to meet with the mayor and was told he was unavailable.

George Sarantou a Toledo city council member has called the mayor's actions wrong and a "slap in the face" of our military. They are working on a resolution calling on the mayor to apologize. City council, apparantly has no issues over crowd control, security, etc.

The mayor did not site any security concerns or crowd control issues when he turned the Marines away. His explanation through a spokesman was that residents "were frightened by past training".

[Understated]

Like the inner city residents are going to be scared by a few guns. They see more battle every day than some Marines, most likely.

[LetMarch]

It seems there is nothing honorable about this mayor! He must be half fink, as is his name. When I remember those that served in world war two, Korea, Veitnam,and now Irah.
These men should be honored, not given contempt and scorn.
He must be a direct desendent of Benedict Arnold!

[Bringbackthedraft]

Who in City Hall issued the permit to use the property for training? Who signed the insurance waiver? Did the Marine Unit ass-u-me that since the property was abandoned, and they had used it before, it was OK to use again? Here is my main issue with this. Hypothetical situation: 2 marines going up a staircase and the steps give way, they fall down and fracture a couple of legs. Doesn’t this leave the city open for a law suit? I can also see where some locals might complain about the noise. Where is this building actually located? Is it near apartment buildings or housing areas? Seniors usually aren’t too fond of loud noises so I can see where they may have been some complaints. I was never confronted with these issues in regard to training troops, we had a county permit to use certain sections of their parks for training. (usually off season) If we needed urban training there were certainly enough un-used areas on local military posts, reserve centers and armories available to us at the time.

[joeclarke]

Excuses, excuses. Yeah, we have to let the lawyers (who are staunchly antimilitary have the last word on this one)

‘If we needed urban training there were certainly enough un-used areas on local military posts’

“Unused locations” are much less realistic.

[mmichaels1970]

Here is a good article about the story. There is zero mention of permit issues, liability concerns, crowd control issues, etc. The only reason given by the mayor is that his residents would be fearful. According to the article:

Members of the 1st Battalion, 24th Marines have trained periodically in downtown Toledo since at least 2004 and most recently in May, 2006.

What has changed liability or security-wise since then?

Also, according to the article:

The Reservists' visit was no surprise to Toledo police, who Tuesday issued a news release to media outlets on behalf of the Marines that asked Toledoans not to be startled by the sight of camouflaged soldiers toting M16 rifles.

It doesn't appear, according to city council and the police department, that permits were an issue here.

According to the CO:

Maj. Jeffrey O'Neill, the company's commanding officer, said he was disappointed by how events played out yesterday, especially because Toledo had been a gracious host for Marine exercises in the past.

"You can go to military ranges for live fire [exercises], but there's no way to duplicate the urban jungle unless you actually train inside a city," Major O'Neill said.

So according to Maj. O'Neill, finding a nice safe park-like area would not accomplish the desired results of this training.

I think your arguments are very reasonable. But I don't see where anybody involved in sending these Marines home just minutes before training commenced used any of your reasoning to justify the cancellation.