The Military Is At War - While America Is At The Mall
David Hernandez and Elaine Brower at the Marine Corps Reserve Center
(Photo: Richard J. Marini / NLN)
On Saturday three of us from Staten Island, members of MDS, traveled to the Garden City, Long Island Marine Corps Reserve Center, home of the 2/25 Battalion, my son’s unit. Over the course of the morning about 200+ marines and sailors arrived there, soon to be deployed to Iraq. The Garden City location is the “Home Training Center” (HTC) for some military units from all over the east coast area.
So we packed up our 1 gallon Ziploc bags with literature to give to the deploying troops. We had enclosed the Military Project’s “Why We Are Here” statement; the GI Rights pamphlet; the March 2008 issue of “Traveling Soldier”, home baked brownies and cookies, and “Sir, No Sir! DVDs. The three of us arrived at the main entrance of the building at around 9 AM. Since the main gate was open, we decided to take the car inside and park it there. Bravely we approached the main sentry gate, where it was buzzing with marines in desert cammies and sidearms, with extra rounds!
(Photo: Richard J. Marini / NLN)
I went up to the window and asked if we could distribute the literature that I had handed over to the Sgt. on duty so he could look at it. I told him it was information for the military members, and he said “OK, you could stand right over there.” So we did, about 20 ft. from the sentry. Pretty neat, but we were hoping he wouldn’t take the time to open the bag and start reading everything inside.
Well, that didn’t last long, although we did hand out about 4 packets, before we were told we couldn’t stand there because there was a statement about “opposing the war in Iraq.” Funny how words matter. With that I asked where we could stand, and the Staff Sgt. In charge walked over and said “you could stand by the main gate, on the sidewalk.” So we headed out there, and handed out a few more packets to very disgruntled marines. Not a real happy crew that morning.
As we were standing there, another Sgt. wandered in our direction and walked up to us asking what we were doing. I had a sign with a slogan that my son told me his Gunny had used all the time, “The Military is at War, while America is at the Mall”. This Sgt. grilled me as to who I was and why we were there. I told him what our purpose was, and that my son, Sgt. James Brower, was coming here shortly and would be deployed for his third tour soon. He didn’t recognize the name, and looked a bit suspicious of me. But then he read the poster with the slogan I had printed, and he said “Oh, we had that written on a wall in Fallujah last time I was there!” He smiled and said “OK, have a nice day,” and left.
About 20 minutes later a Garden City Police car approached us. I knew the drill, and was expecting this. The officer drove directly up to me and asked me what we were doing, and then said “I really know why you are here, and I respect your right to be here…” he was actually very, very nice to us. He parked and got out of the car, took a lit package, and said that he was getting calls from inside the base, not from the command but from the marines themselves, who said we were “upsetting” the family members there to see their loved ones off for their deployment. I told him my son was coming shortly, and I would say goodbye to him also, and this is how I felt about his deployment, and that maybe some of those military families shared our feelings, and would welcome our literature.
Original post by Elaine Brower and reposted by Radical Blogs
