Yes. Wilmington is a very LIBERAL town. I was down there this week and all the Obama hippies were out. Also lots of limo liberals. Big film industry down there. That being said it is a great town otherwise.
Well, okay, jarheads I see the logic of not want a bar getting trashed...BUT we’re talking gentlemanly SAILORS on USS Wilmington! Scheezech,
That’s typical. Bars do that all the time. The military guys fight, especially each other.
Our 17 yr old grandson just enlisted in the Marines. And my husband was in the Marines during Viet Nam. What kind of a world do we live in anymore...
what jerks.
PLEASE military coming into my bar, look military. wear your uniform or show me your military ID. i’ll buy you a drink.
I went into a public-’ouse to get a pint o’ beer,
The publican ‘e up an’ sez, “We serve no red-coats here.”
The girls be’ind the bar they laughed an’ giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an’ to myself sez I:
O it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, go away”;
But it’s “Thank you, Mister Atkins”, when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it’s “Thank you, Mister Atkins”, when the band begins to play.
A soldier or sailor is the definition of the customer the club does not want: he does not have a lot of money to waste, he travels in a large pack of similar men, he and his friends are not afraid of the bouncers and are always prepared for a fight.
The dream male customer for a club owner is a single guy or a guy accompanied by at most one or two friends who is in his thirties, has plenty of discretionary income to spend on sending overpriced bottles of champagne to a table of women, and who is scared to death of his bouncers and will therefore not cause any trouble or fights.
Some Wilmington bars are wary of military patrons, as well they should be. Face it, folks, too many of Uncle Sam’s finest in too small of a venue, with no controlling legal authority figures about, is a recipe for instant wreckage. Just add alcohol. I was in the Reagan Army, the one the commies feared, and, while drinking and clowning with Buck, Chuk, Rock, Tex, and Gig, I committed acts of brazen, violent, hilarious(?) vandalism and destruction to which I will never confess. We weren’t vicious, I don’t think, but we were young, strong, proud, drunk, silly, selfish, crude, cool, and occasionally cruel.
I was a GI long enough to know that I wouldn’t want very many of ‘em drinking inside any room that I owned, not without cops, MPs or uniformed officers around. Weren’t many altar boys in the service then, and there probably aren’t too many there now. If I were a Wilmington bar owner, I’d try to treat ‘em fairly, but I’d keep two eyes on ‘em, too.
Pass a law against this (if it doesn’t exist already) and enforce it to the max.
I remember in 1963 as a chief attempted to enter a bar and was turned away for being in uniform. Nothing has changed it seems over the years
I had very bad experiences in Wilmington back in 1991.
I was home for my sister’s wedding and decided to visit my old Army battery Executive Officer (XO) in Wilmington. I stopped by Bragg and picked up my college roommate from the 82nd ABN and headed to Wilmington.
When we were there, we were clean-cut and well dressed, as were were all active or former officers and we certainly weren’t out looking for trouble.
We sat in one bar for 20 minutes without a single waitress stopping by. When I attempted to flag one down, she walked by no more than one foot and ignored my “Excuse me, Miss?”. We sat there another 5 minutes and left without being served.
As soon as we were in the parking lot, a cop came out of the shadows at the side (WTF?) and started trying to roust us. He asked for our IDs and asked what we were doing there.
We sucked it up and answered his questions, handing over our IDs. I asked what we did wrong and the cop wouldn’t say. Just playing the heavy for the bar.
One story is an anecdote.
Hundreds of stories is a statistic.