Posted on 01/02/2003 9:39:14 PM PST by RCW2001
About 50 people who marched to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Charlotte on Wednesday to protest a possible war with Iraq were confronted by angry veterans who said their presence was an insult to fallen comrades.
A police officer intervened and said the protesters should be allowed to proceed. The dozen veterans stepped aside.
"I have no hate against anyone except punks like you," Edd Furr, 67, a Vietnam veteran from Concord, shouted at one of the protesters.
As they walked alongside the memorial several veterans exchanged words with the protesters and told them not to touch the wall, located in a park between and Third and Fourth streets just east of the I-277 loop.
"I have already touched that wall before," said David Dixon, 34, an organizer of the march.
"Then your finger must be burning," a veteran responded.
The protesters lined up in front of the wall, sang "God Bless America" and left soon afterward.
Before marching to the war memorial, the protesters gathered at noon at Marshall Park. As several people spoke, protesters carried signs with some reading "No American Blood for Iraqi Oil" and "War Kills / Peace is Patriotic." One person held a small American flag.
Some speakers criticized U.S. Mideast policy, while others spoke of the immorality of war.
To the veterans it was not the protesters' message that was upsetting. The veterans said they were angered by the protesters' attempt to use the memorial as way to make their point.
"This hurts," said Diran Tookmanian, 57, a Vietnam veteran, whose voice broke slightly as he appeared to hold back tears. "This hurts more than you can imagine."
Tookmanian said he served in Vietnam for a year in the infantry. Tookmanian and other veterans said they learned about the protest over the Internet.
"If they want to protest they can go in front of government buildings and scream and yell to their heart's content," Tookmanian said as he pointed toward uptown. "I object to the place they do it. To me this is like Gettysburg. It is like Arlington. This is hallowed ground to us."
Dixon, Charlotte coordinator of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, responded: "If we come here on New Year's Day it is to honor and respect those people."
Dixon said there was not a greater turnout because not enough people knew about the demonstration or the groups opposed to a war with Iraq.
"I would say the anti-war movement is in the majority," Dixon said.
"It's rare that I meet a person who is for the war."
One of those who attended the rally and spoke was David Marresh, 77, of Myers Park. Marresh said he would rather have been home, but: "I think it is wrong, and when I feel that strongly about it I have to speak up. I feel that a terrible action has been set in motion by the president, and it can only end in disaster."
Notice how these people never mention the actions of other leaders in the world like saddam, taliban, N Korea, etc. Only our leaders are evil and war like. Idiots.
Let Saddam use a WMD on American soil, and see how "peaceful" these retards are.
Sadly, they would still see it as our fault for making saddam do it...idiots indeed.
Many American heros, patriots, and combat veterans oppose the upcoming war. And many chickenhawks favor war.
Yeah, that's what our local miserable, filthy, socialist maggots say too. They are liars and so are you.
I can imagine it.
L
If you love your freedom, thank a veteran!
Oh, my goodness, YES!!! I only wish we could send our peaceniks off to the enemy, like Wormtongue was sent off. Exile them all to Iraq, then have someone tell Saddam that they all know military secrets. I wish that God could wake them up to the realities of the world. You can't change the world with pure good intentions when a good chunk of the world wants power and dominance and the distruction and suffering of those who do not believe like they do.
The chances are, they may simply say that we must "understand" why these dirt bags hate us so much. They will never get a clue.
When we do our Friday night Freeps against the peaceniks group we periodically have people driving by yelling at them "Go to Iraq, if you like Saddam so much". Some are much more colorful in how they say it, but several give their passing opinion every Friday night.
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