Rep Sweet giving the opening prayer.
The crowd. I estimate 40-50 spectators.
This pic is interesting, because of what it says about the rally. The soldier in the pic is a captain I served with in Iraq. He is the next commander of the military intelligence company here. To make it more plain, the guy is an Iraq war veteran, having been there in 2005.
I and one other person talked to him. The Captain hung around for a little while, but, being ignored, he split soon after the start. Now remember, this is a support the troops rally. The one and only troop in uniform was ignored.
Apparently the OC group had called and asked for a token soldier for the rally. The Idaho Guard got a little confused but eventually coughed up this captain. He told me that he showed up and told the organizers he was ready to speak. The organizers told him they didn't have enough advance warning, and couldn't fit him in. No one went over to him to talk to him or thank him.
This confuses me. A rally in support of troops, but the only troop in uniform was ignored. The crowd didn't talk to him, nor did the organizers.
A rally in suport of the troops that doesn't have time for an Iraqi war veteran, and yet they let the VFW commander prattle on for about a half hour.
(Update. I cleaned up a bit of loose language that had cluttered the original, and added a bit more about the captain.
2 comments:
I just want to point out that SGT Steve Winters, US Army (ret.), a veteran of the Iraq war, DID speak at the event.
Also, there were close to 250 people there, not between 40-50.
You should check out the press release on the OC website... www.operationcompletion.org, it gives more details about what actually took place at the rally.
Thanks for your time in the Service!
Honor, Courage, Commitment
-Joe
I did go to operationcomplete.org. There are no wide-angle or other type shots which support the claim of 'close to 250 people'.
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