Veterans for Peace Disrupt Veteran’s Day Ceremony in Boston
I find this story kind of sad actually. Boston had a Veteran’s Day parade, after the parade there was going to be a ceremonial laying of wreaths for every war from WWI all the way up to the Iraq war. That is when the ceremony got ugly. A group called Veterans For Peace teamed up with Code Pink to interupt the ceremony. In a protest of the Iraq war, the Veterans for peace shouted anti-war slogans and would not stop when asked by the police.
The Veterans For Peace and their supporters say this is a free speech issue, and they had their say. The ironic part here is that they didn’t allow the people who held the ceremony to continue with their ceremony in effect stifling the free speech of the people holding the ceremony.
Needless to say, this infuriated many of the veterans who were there to witness the ceremonies in their honor.
“This is not a political parade,” said Lawler, an Air Force veteran of the Korean War and former Boston police officer, “it’s to show our veterans respect.”
This is a day meant to honor some of the same people who were protesting this event. The protesters are the ones who helped defend our right to a peaceful protest, and for that I am grateful. But I can’t help but wonder what they are trying to accomplish with this.
They are in effect dishonoring the troops who are fighting in Iraq right now. They are saying that what they sacrificed was somehow greater than what our soldiers fighting now are sacrificing. And I find that intolerable. The veterans protesting, and our soldiers fighting in Iraq have made choices and sacrifices that I never have and can never fully understand, and when I see these veterans trying to discredit what our soldiers are doing in Iraq it makes me sad.
I am a big supporter of the military and it saddens me to see a group of veterans politicize a holiday meant to honor them.
America's Watchtower 
It’s good to have an eyewitness who exposes the lies of the liberal, anti American, terrorist supporting media.
The media said the traitors stood unspeaking with their gags in their mouth.
A DAMN LIE.
Just as the lie that victory is ours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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I believe in freedom of speech. But I also feel groups like code pink go too far with it. I think it is a disgrace that they protest at a ceremony or at a soldiers funeral. They sream and yell like a bunch of idiots. They do not have any respect for the people fighting and for the families who have lost their loved one. I feel it should be against the law. They should NOT be able to get away with doing this. If they want to protest, go to the White and scream in front all you want. But to do this I have to say, that I am ashamed to call them Americans.
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It is very sad. As a veteran I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this. It is very maddening that they are using veteran’s day as an excuse to pull this sort of crap. I don’t care if they are vets, it pisses off the rest of us.
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I am torn about this as well. There is nobody in this world that I respect more than veterans, and when I see this it makes me sad. These are people that did fight for this right, and I respect them for that, but I just wish they wouldn’t politicize this day, a day meant to honor them.
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I’m a veteran who isn’t ambivalent about this at all. This is dead wrong.
The reason I rationalize it that way is because there seems to be a faction in this country who are trying to divide history into “good” wars and “bad” wars. For instance, WWII is a “good” war because the Nazis were trying to take over everything. Vietnam and Iraq are “bad” wars because the causes were not clearly defined, and because of the civilian deaths.
I’ll go along somewhat with the “defined causes” (although the news media is primarily responsible for the confusion), but the civilian deaths thing makes WWII the worst war of all, given that hundreds of thousands of civilians died in the carpet bombing of Dresden alone. But WWII is a “good” war. That’s where the logic breaks down.
My objection to them is that they don’t seem to know what they’re talking about. War is neither “good” nor “bad”. It is simply something that has to be done when diplomacy breaks down (and the diplomacy on Iraq broke down 10 years before the war started).
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A clarification to my previous comment:
Do these veterans, even if wrong, have the right to demonstrate and express their opinion?
Yes.
Are they somehow sacrosanct and can not be criticized for being wrong?
No.
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mamapajamas, thanks for your service. I do feel bad for criticizing them though. If there was ever a group that deserves to protest anything, it is this group. However I think that they are so off base here that I can’t help but criticize them.
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Thank you for your thanks :).
Whenever you find yourself wondering if you should say something or not, just remember that the Vietnam Veterans Against the War were also veterans. But they were also bold-faced liars who spread the propaganda that our troops in Vietnam were murdering civilians, raping women, killing kids, torturing prisoners, etc etc etc. When the military started investigating these charges, not a single one held water. Entirely too many people STILL believe that crap. The one and only “atrocity” that ever held up under investigation was My Lai, and it was the Army that discovered and filed those charges, not war protesters.
The ol’ coots in the above photo look to me like they could be old VVAW members. They’re about the right age. I have no truck with them, even though they’re my contemporaries.
I’ll repeat… they have the right to protest all they want, but they have no special right be protected from criticism.
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I am a U.S. Army Veteran and I witnessed the brave veterans getting arrested doing nothing but standing silently. One man was assaulted in front of the Boston Police officers and they allowed this man to go.Assault is a crime standing silently on public property is not. This is American people and as veterans we served to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. You should all be outraged that these brave veterans were arrested for holding up to the oath they took. Those of you who believe they should not be allowed to march in the parade with other veterans and to stand silently do not believe in the Constitution. Why should I be surprised because Bush and Cheney don;t think they need to obey the Constitution either.
Its a sad day for America…
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