Identity Theft

I can't stand it when people appropriate "America's Children" for some hair-brained left-wing cause. My children are "America's Children", true - but they're my children, first and foremost. Keep your mitts off them. I find it deeply offensive.

How much worse for the families of those whose children - adults, who volunteered for the military - died in the service of our country, only to have their names and legacies hijacked by the Peace Creeps at Code Pink and MoveOn?

One man has had enough.

Gary Qualls' son, Louis, a Marine, was killed last autumn in Iraq::

A patriotic camp with a "God Bless Our President!" banner sprung up [in Crawford, TX] Saturday, countering the anti-war demonstration started by a fallen soldier's mother two weeks ago near President Bush's ranch.

The camp is named "Fort Qualls," in memory of Marine Lance Cpl. Louis Wayne Qualls, 20, who died in Iraq last fall...Qualls' frustration with the anti-war demonstrators erupted last week when he removed a cross bearing his son's name that was among hundreds the group had put up along the road to Bush's ranch.

Qualls called the protesters' views disrespectful to soldiers, and said he had to yank out two more crosses after protesters kept replacing them.By the way, the Peace Creeps' views are apparently fairly brittle:

He and others at "Fort Qualls" have asked for a debate with those at the Crawford Peace House, which is helping Sheehan.

It's unclear if that will happen. But a member of Gold Star Families for Peace, co-founded by Sheehan and comprised of relatives of fallen soldiers, said her group would not participate.

"We're asking for a meeting with the president, period," said Michelle DeFord, whose 37-year-old son, Sgt. David W. Johnson, was in the Army National Guard from Oregon when he was killed in Iraq last fall. "We don't want to debate with people who don't understand our point of view."

But...but...they do! Intimately!

What is it they "don't understand?"

The opposition to the Peace Creeps is growing; last week's polling showed that Americans' for/against numbers were running 31/38 against Sheehan; among military families, it was 30/48.

This ties in with a piece I'm writing for tomorrow; "On The Media", NPR's apologium for the left-wing media establishment, ran a sick, sexist, politically-fraught little paeon to Sheehan and the other mothers in Crawford, in which the presence - and grief - of the fathers of the fallen was cheapened, derogated, derided ("When you sully a mother's grief with politics, then she's just like a father"), one of the most vile pieces of bilge I've ever listened to. Expect a detailed fiskin when the transcript is released tomorrow.

Posted by Mitch at August 22, 2005 12:02 PM | TrackBack