Arlington on Memorial Day: Concretebob Reports

We arrived at 0800 hours and set up about 300 feet North of the Main Building on Memorial Drive.

We had been standing on the sidewalk about an hour and a half. asshats (phelps' group of idiots)*** arrived at 0930 hours, which was an hour earlier than their press release said they would be there. They thought they were sneaky, but they ain't seen sneaky.

There must have been a thousand people that passed by us that morning, between the walkers coming by Metro, car and motorcycle. (I now know what a politician feels like, I probably shook hands with 200 people that morning.) Everyone who walked by our group took the time to thank us, or give us a thumbs up, or shake someone's hand.
Every car that went by, every motorcycle rider, every passenger, waved or gave us a thumbs up, rolled the window down and yelled
Thank You.

I won't describe what some of them had to say to the asshats.

At about 1030 hours, traffic had thinned out a bit. To my left was the entrance to the Metro. I was looking in that direction, when I saw a young Marine PFC in Class A uniform coming up the stairs from the Metro. When he reached the sidewalk, he broke into a run across the street in the direction of the asshats. I knew what was going to happen next, but there was nothing any of us could do.

He reached the area the Park Police had barricaded for the asshats, breached the barricade, and before the Park Police could react, had grabbed the sign which said "Thank God for dead soldiers" and ripped it from the lady's hands. He then grabbed the flag she had around her waste and tried to exit the area. By this time the Park Police reacted and restrained the Marine.

This young Marine had just returned from Iraq. He could have done a lot worse, and there isn't a jury in the Commonwealth that would have
convicted him of anything.

Yours truly walked across the street and invited this young Marine to join us, in an effort to get him away from the asshats, and the Park Police. By this time, the rest of the Marine's companions, including his Ell Tee, had arrived on scene, and the Ell Tee proceeded to play nice with the Park Police, (which really wasn't neccessary), and I was blocking news cameras with my sign. I figured there wasn't any point any allowing this young Marine's face to get plastered all over the six o'clock news. At that point I was told by a plain-clothes police officer to "Get your ass back across the street where you belong". Not wanting to cause any further escalation, I obeyed.

When I got back to my side, the twenty or so people I was standing with broke out in unison, chanting "SEMPER FI" and "Let the Marine go" at the top of our lungs. The Park Police can't appear to take sides, but I can tell you, they didn't want to deal with this young Marine. They let him go after taking down some information.

The highlight was the Presidential motorcade. At 1050 hours, the President and First Lady drove by in the limo, and I swear that limo slowed just a bit as it approached us. We got a wave and a smile from the President who was riding in the right side rear seat.



That's TWICE this year the POTUS has seen me standing on the street holding a sign which said something positive.

Now, here's a scary item:
The Secret Service knows me on sight and by name. I found that out when we countered the anti-war crowd at the Vice-Presidents residence.

My partner and I showed up, and the first thing the SS asked me was, "Are you with Protest Warrior?"
I said "Yes Sir".
He looked at his notebook, and then said "You must be concretebob."

"You know who I am?" I asked.

He gave me one of those looks and said "Oh, yeah, we know who you are.”

Then he kinda smiled a little and said “We like the website".

by Concretebob

Link to kingsley13 photos

Landry Fan & Free Republic reports

***phelps cult also known as Westboro Baptist Church, Kansas