I just posted this in response to another thread but I can’t help but make a topic on this as I am riled up now. My opinion matters no more than anyone else’s, but I’ve at least got to express it as someone who was chief of Baghdad ER for a year and a half and written a book on the matter.
I put dozens of our finest in body bags and sent literally hundreds home without arms or legs in Baghdad ER, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, and others in between. Yes they died for that right, but I’m sure their families left with only a flag to remember them by don’t kneel at the national anthem. And out of respect for those burned, blown up, mutilated and unrecognizable bodies and remains of these men and women we should do the same.
Protest all you want, but don’t do it that way. If even one, and only one, family member of a dead American hero is hurt by this then another way to protest should be utilized.
Your 100% correct. Thank you for your service and God bless you!
I’m a veteran as well and I’ve handled this in a different manner. I only tune in to Dallas Cowboy games.
We live in a country full of liberals that have no respect for anything! It has become border line lawless. Those that protesting the Natiinal Anthem are rich self serving that for the most part have never nor will ever do anything for the common good of others.
The farther we get away from the principles our country was founded and built upon the more disgraceful and disrespectful it gets.
The NFL has a rule about the National Anthem and fails to enforce it much like this country fails to enforce the law aginst riots and allows people to call them protest
A few weeks ago in California a disable veteran in a whell chair was attacked and beat up at one of these so called protest.
While the police watched and did nothing.
In St. Louis the Police watches as protesters destroyed property! It happens all over and nothing is done.
We have politician that change mans law to pacify the liberal groups what ever group it is that day. There’s illegal immigrants that protest for their rights in this country when they have broken our laws by coming here . All the while they do this they continue to take benifts away from veterans to take care of folks that care nothing about this country. You will learn just have much it cost for medical insurance for your family and what it cost when you retire. Also I’m a 100% disabled veteran and the phrase if you retire you will have 100% medical and dental benefits for you and your family Is a lie!
On top of that to keep your Tricare insurance that you pay for you have to pay for Medicaid or your can’t keep your Tricare even though you pay for Tricare.
Send the illegals home and folks that have no respect for our country send them to Iraqi for and eye opening experience.
Stop bringing in refuges from the Middle East that hate our country and our way of life.
The people in our country that should be protesting are the Christians that have surely had our rights taken away!
I’ll follow God’s law when it conflicts with mans law!
Thanks for your service guys. We owe veterans across the years more than can ever be repaid. I wish our country hadn’t changed as it has. My fear is that our God is just and our time is coming.
I thank all you veterans for your service, but I think you’re simply wrong to be offended by a peaceful protest. These guys aren’t protesting or disrespecting military sacrifice no matter how badly you might think otherwise. They’re protesting a perceived injustice.
I met a now-deceased black federal judge from So Carolina a few years ago. He was a WWII vet who saw some terrible combat. When he got home he was on a train where he of course had to ride in “colored” seats. But what really bothered him was when he got off at a train station there were a group of Italian POW’s being served in the cafeteria where he, a combat U.S. soldier was not allowed to eat. To us that’s history, to him it was a memory.
We white people don’t fully appreciate just how badly our nation has treated black & brown people while giving lip service to “equality” & “freedom.” It’s easy for us to think a particular form of protest is bad manners, bad form, or disrespectful. But when so many unarmed black men are shot by policemen and seem to get away with it (perhaps out of their own irrational fear or real fear), I understand someone trying to do something to call attention to the matter. Perhaps it has backfired because people like you have characterized their protest as a protest against veterans (as if the flag only represents military people). It’s not.
I thank you for your service, but again, I strongly disagree with your views. I’ve spoken to and/or heard enough veterans who disagree with you, too, to believe all veterans feel the same way.
Now, my rant is over, too. I hope it doesn’t offend you because I truly do appreciate what you’ve done, but if it does, it does.
I can never know what it is to be mistreated by police, to be stopped in an upscale neighborhood because I don’t “look like I belong there.” That is shameful and should never happen, but I know it does. That said, I do think the anthem protests are not the way to protest, and I didn’t need the President to say anything for me to feel that way. He flamed the fire and shouldn’t have.
I don’t watch the NFL very often–I don’t have time. However, today when I got a moment I watched college volleyball. Learned something about the sport I never knew. As the NFL teams have the right to protest, I, too, have the right to not watch another game. It’s my choice. Don’t trample on it. It ended for me when a team aired our nation’s dirty laundry on foreign soil by not standing for the anthem but standing for “God Save the Queen.”
I appreciate our veterans, and if any of them feel slighted by this protest, then I’ve always believed this–one’s rights stop when it brings pain to another. I have no doubt some good can come from the protests, such as what the two Dolphins’ players are doing in their communities. We need more of that and take politics out of the sports arena altogether.
Thank you to all who are or have served in our military.
I concur your sentiments Sir.
I come from a family of veterans, not myself, but from a father who was a WW2 Vet & a brother who was Gulf War Vet.
They both survived but seen enough carnage and the American Flag draped over caskets.
Thank you for your service and your words of wisdom here.
I Salute you.
The politicians have done a masterful job of making this a complete wedge issue. Rather than having adult conversations, it’s now all about slights–both real and perceived.
I work with vets and military and law enforcement all the time and respect the hell out of them. I’ve had their backs and they have mine.
And, while they generally share the opinion of the OP, there are also many who feel strongly that they, among other things, fought/fight for the rights of their fellow citizens to speak their minds, protest peacefully, practice the religion of their choice or none at all, etc.
But rather than acknowledging our differences, embracing them, working to make problems better, it’s a race to see who can be offended the most and the quickest.
That’s not a jab at the OP. I just think I can make the argument that by protesting people actually are in reality respecting the flag and the country in some respect because it’s a country that has been great for centuries because of our Bill of Rights (the first 10 Amendments to the US Constitution).
As I sit here in a doctor’s office waiting room, I’m literally next to a Muslim woman who, based on the Siri questions coming from her phone, is studying for the US citizenship test.
And, that’s part of what makes us great. We are a diverse melting pot of people that mostly share a couple of common characteristics: we want our children and family to have great lives and have it better than we had it.
I’m as guilty as can be of not always practicing what I preach, but in order to move forward and improve things, I respectfully think we need to do less sniping and more listening.
“Reasonable minds can differ.” That’s actually a Ken Starr quote.
There is a saying in my family when we are discussing someone with whom we do not agree: It doesn’t make them a bad person.
You make a good point about people being in a rush to be offended. The older I get, the more I try to abide by being quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger. It usually gets me in less trouble than those who believe their first thought is their best thought.
PIG, I don’t think it’s just the politicians, I think the media has also done things for “ratings.” I agree with what you’re saying, and I’ve said the same before. I, like you, am also guilty of not practicing what I preach.
As for adult dialogue, I’ll bring up the Boston protest the week after Charlottesville. The “free speech” website actually said what you did. That we all have the freedom to speak and we should get together and discuss it. The 40,000 that was lauded said that was hate speech and shouldn’t be allowed. It made me think Boston was a town of idiots.
My humble appreciation for your service and all on this board that have sacrificed so much to make this country what it is. You are the real heroes in life and not someone that rushes for a 1000 yards or wins a Super Bowl. Do the NFL players have a right to protest our flag… we all know the answer to that. Should they… hell no. I only watched a single game Sunday but other than one player they have suddenly adjusted their protesting. In the next couple of weeks it will be almost nonexistent because… we all know the answer to that: money. The NFL and the players union have been talking nonstop since the consumers of football are staging their own protest of burning team jerseys, attendance and viewer ratings falling in a big way, and the biggest issue of all: corporate sponsors negating contracts on the teams and individual level. NFL, owners (biggest disappointment of all) and the players have put a price tag on social injustice. It’s easy to take a stance until it hits your wallet then “cooler heads prevail”.
The people in the military never put themselves first or they wouldn’t be serving in the first place. You don’t lose your right to protest in the glorious country because you can be bought, but it does render your cause worthless.
[quote=“Hogsrus”]
My humble appreciation for your service and all on this board that have sacrificed so much to make this country what it is. You are are the real heroes in life and not someone that rushes for a 1000 yards or wins a Super Bowl. Do the NFL players have a right to protest our flag… we all know the answer to that. Should they… hell no. I only watched a single game Sunday but other than one player they have suddenly adjusted their protesting. In the next couple of weeks it will be almost nonexistent because… we all know the answer to that: money. The NFL and the players union have been talking nonstop since the consumers of football are staging their own protest of burning team jerseys, attendance and viewer ratings falling in a big way, and the biggest issue of all: corporate sponsors negating contracts on the teams and individual level. NFL, owners (biggest disappointment of all) and the players have put a price tag on social injustice. It’s easy to take a stance until it hits your wallet then “cooler heads prevail”.
The people in the military never put themselves first or they wouldn’t be serving in the first place. You don’t lose your right to protest in the glorious country because you can be bought, but it does render your cause worthless.
[/quote]A common misconception IMO.
They are not protesting the flag (or Kapernick wasn’t I should say).
They are protesting what they perceive as police brutality and judicial inequality.
They happen to take a knee during the anthem.
I’m not quite sure how often many of these players have to say that they aren’t protesting the military for people to understand that. I suspect people never will.
I think it is a bad idea to lump the military in with the “flag protests.” The military doesn’t have a monopoly on the flag. As is seen by any number of products that are quick to slap a flag on the product to drive sales.
Not true, Kap’s own words, “I will not show respect for a flag of a country” that is disrespectful of the flag, “that oppresses black people.”
As for police brutality and judicial inequality, that was the few guys that were kneeling (such as the two from Miami you posted). In the last two weeks, however, it is all about disrespecting the President, because of his words. According to many, it is a protest for freedom of speech.
I’ll grant you that point. I don’t think he was protesting the flag, rather the lack of action that the flag is supposed to represent. We may be saying the same thing and this is merely an exercise in semantics. If so, I’ll grant you that point.
Regardless, I wouldn’t have protested in that way, but am glad we live in a country that allows it.
