Kicking Veterans
Out of Veterans Day
We’re not often at a loss for words around here, but there are days.
Organizers of the Long Beach Veterans Day parade ruled that veterans who oppose the Iraq war can’t march. The head of one such group is a marine who served three tours in Iraq. He’s out. Others are Veterans for Peace and Military Families Speak Out.
Why were they turned down? Because, as a city councilman who is also one of the organizers put it, “They have a political agenda.” His name (attention, documentary film-makers) is Val Lerch.
They have a political agenda? And he doesn’t? The parade doesn’t? What Lerch obviously means is that they have a political agenda that differs from HIS political agenda.
And guess which councilman will be waving and smiling from a bunting-encrusted limousine at the head of the parade.
Depending on the poll you consult, 60% to 70% of Americans – thus a healthy majority of Long Beach residents — are against the war. And the city’s money as well as the city streets are provided for the parade. Staffing, flags, banners, utilities, and police protection are all paid for by the citizens, like it or not, whatever their views.
It’s not just Long Beach. No doubt the same ignorant arrogance has been played out by self-appointed parade marshals in cities across the land.
But, hey, it’s Veterans Day.
Let’s honor the veterans – all of them.
And let’s start sending some parade organizers to Iraq.
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A quick Google search revealed that Val Lerch (this MUST be either a stage name or a misprint) served in the Coast Guard … a service whose members have been conspicuously absent from virtually every hostile conflict in which the U.S. was ever involved, save, perhaps to fight to ride the Mediterranean of the Barbary Pirates, and I’m not so sure about that. Perhaps seasickness slopped over from Val’s stomach into his character.
Comment by Steve Alber — November 16, 2007 @ 1:29 pm
That explains it. I thought maybe he was the butler on the Munsters or the Addams Family, but he’s not intelligent enough for that.
Comment by Al — November 16, 2007 @ 11:42 pm