Point 8: cowardly antiwar protesters
March 27, 2008
I’m tired of antiwar protesters showing up at the funerals of our fallen soldiers. A family who’s loved ones gave their life in a just and noble cause, only to be cruelly tormented on the funeral day by cowardly protesters is beyond shameful.
March 27, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Yeah protesting war at a loved one’s funeral.. wow. How noble!
March 28, 2008 at 11:30 am
Sean, I agree with your sentiment; it would be an absolutely horrible breach of human decency for anti-war protesters to show up at a soldier’s funeral and disrupt the proceedings in any way. That would be a very uncompassionate and morally corrupt act.
The problem with Joe’s point is that he is describing a situation that probably never occurred and has not even been verifiably documented. Even if there were an occurrence of a case like this, it would certainly be a behavioral anomaly for that demographic.
The logical motivation for antiwar protesters to disturb a funeral is actually pretty farcical if you think about it. Peace and progressive activists do what they do because they have compassion for people other than themselves. What good would it do for their cause to terrorize people mourning a lost soldier?
This question of ‘motivational character analysis’ was always a small voice in my head compared to the widely disseminated classic story of “The war protesters spitting on soldiers as they returned home from Vietnam” story.
However, I was lucky enough to have recently watched a Vietnam era documentary called, “Sir! No Sir!”, which tells the long suppressed story of the GI movement to end the war in Vietnam. A portion towards the end of the film is about a researcher’s years of effort to find the origin and confirm the occurence of the “spitting incident” which has been so frequently told that it is accepted as part of American cultural heritage. I don’t want to ruin the film for you but as it turns out, the incident never happened; it was an unconfirmed story that was planted in newspapers as part of propaganda campaign. Interesting stuff….eh?
A Film Review: This is powerful stuff, offering us not only a new look at the past, but unavoidably relevant insights into the present – NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
here’s a link the film’s site with a 12 minute trailer:
http://sirnosir.com/
Is it possible the Joe was a victim of the ’spitting campaign’ propaganda as I was until I was exposed to another perspective backed by objective truth seeking fact rather than fiction? I think Joe is reacting to a situation that never happened over 30 years ago.
If you can find some documented cases of protesters disturbing funerals of soldiers I would be interested to see it and I would certainly condemn their actions.
July 14, 2009 at 8:33 am
I spent the night of my 21st birthday in a Vietnamese rice paddy. I was an infantry medic, a draftee, and a conscientious objector. When my unit was sent into Cambodia, I tore up a pair of black socks and made an armband in token protest. When others asked me about my armband, some laughed or rolled their eyes, and others tore up socks themselves. When I came home and was discharged from the Army, they let me keep a dress uniform. I joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War and attended many marches and war protests wearing my uniform. I was welcomed. No one ever spit on me or suggested that I was a baby-killer. It was ironic because most of my friends who had avoided the draft though student deferments, medical reasons, or good fortune were strangely avoidant of any talk about my war experiences.