Tag Archives: World War II

Hold On: Elderly WWII Vets Vow Major Showdown Wednesday at War Memorial – Even After Alleged Arrest Threat

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Oct. 2, 2013 12:10am

After a group of veterans “stormed” the barricaded World War II memorial in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, other WWII veterans groups are planning to visit the same site on Wednesday — which only exists because of their service. Meanwhile, another Honor Flight group in Ohio is claiming that the Park Service threatened to arrest its members if they entered the closed memorial during their planned visit on Oct. 9 (assuming the government is still “shut down”).

Andrea Plunkett, a volunteer with the Kansas City-area Heartland Honor Flight, told TheBlaze the group plans to bring about 90 veterans to the WWII memorial in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday. She said the WWII veterans would arrive at around 11 a.m. with a delegation about about 12 U.S. senators and representatives. The group plans to breach the barricades.

She also said another Missouri flight from Franklin County should be arriving at the same time.

“When we heard the news this morning about the barricades being erected at the memorials, dozens of people started helping us try to find a solution,” she told TheBlaze. “Both Kansas and Missouri officials have been incredibly responsive– we heard back from Senator [Roy] Blunt, [Claire] McCaskill, [Pat] Roberts and [Jerry] Moran’s offices right away. Several members of Congress have been involved as well.”

Plunkett said canceling their flight was not an option because an Honor Flight can cost “upwards of $80,000.

“Our next flight isn’t until Spring of 2014, and waiting is not an option for many of these vets. Between 600-900 WWII vets die each day, so when it comes to Honor Flights, time is of the essence,” she said. “These veterans can’t wait on the government.”

Shockingly, an Honor Flight group from Toledo, Ohio, was allegedly threatened with arrest if they entered the closed memorial, setting up a possible showdown between vets and the government.

Honor Flight of Northwest Ohio was told by the Park Service that individuals in the group would face arrest if they entered the closed memorial, Lee Armstrong, the group’s president, claims.

Armstrong was stunned.

“I said, are you kidding me? You’re going to arrest a 90/91-year-old veteran from seeing his memorial? If it wasn’t for them it wouldn’t be there. She said, ‘That’s correct sir,’” Armstrong told WNWO-TV.

It is unclear whether the Park Service official, who reportedly refused to provide her name hung up, was relaying official policy.

Plunkett told TheBlaze Heartland Honor Flight hadn’t even considered the possibility of arrest prior to being made aware of the report.

“All of our vets are in their late 80′s and early 90′s,” she said. “That would be quite a scene.”

The current plan is to arrive at the WWII monument in Washington and simply go through the barricades so they can honor their fellow veterans, which is exactly what happened on Tuesday.

More from KSHB-TV:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/10/02/round-2-wwii-vets-will-take-on-washington-and-visit-barricaded-memorial-wednesday-after-honor-flight-group-was-allegedly-threatened-with-arrest/

 

Military Priests Face Arrest for Celebrating Mass in Defiance of Shutdown

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military-chaplains-celebrate-EASTER-575x299

Our government is out of control.

First, it was the World War II veterans who had to break down barriers to see the open air, un-attended memorial erected in their honor.  A memorial which is on public land but is supported – including the National Park Service fee – with private funds. This week there was more security surrounding this memorial — just to keep elderly veterans out — than there was at our embassy in Benghazi the night it was attacked.

And for what? To inflict as much pain as possible through this government shutdown. It’s called Washington Monument Syndrome, and it’s pure political theater.

But now there’s a story just coming to light that takes things even further. According the Archdiocese for Military Services, GS and contract priests (who are paid by the federal government as independent contractors in places where there aren’t enough active-duty priests to meet the needs of Catholics in military service) are being forbidden from celebrating Mass, even on a volunteer basis.

If they violate this restriction, they face possible arrest. FOR CELEBRATING MASS. 

From John Schlageter, General Counsel for the Archdiocese:

There is a chronic shortage of active duty Catholic chaplains. While roughly 25% of the military is Catholic, Catholic priests make up only about 8% of the chaplain corps. That means approximately 275,000 men and women in uniform, and their families, are served by only 234 active-duty priests.  The temporary solution to this shortage is to provide GS and contract priests.   These men are employed by the government to ensure that a priest is available when an active duty Catholic Chaplain is not present.  With the government shutdown, GS and contract priests who minister to Catholics on military bases worldwide are not permitted to work – not even to volunteer.  During the shutdown, it is illegal for them to minister on base and they risk being arrested if they attempt to do so.

As an example, if a Catholic family has a Baptism scheduled at the base chapel at Langley AFB this weekend, unless they can locate a priest who is not a GS or contract priest, they should consider it cancelled.   Likewise, a Marine who attends Sunday Mass at the Quantico Chapel will have to go elsewhere this weekend.  If you are a Catholic stationed in Japan or Korea and are served by a Contract or GS priest, unless you speak Korean or Japanese and can find a church nearby, then you have no choice but to go without Mass this weekend.  Until the Federal Government resumes normal operations, or an exemption is granted to contract or GS priests, Catholic services are indefinitely suspended at those worldwide installations served by contract and GS priests.

At a time when the military is considering alternative sources of funding for sporting events at the service academies, no one seems to be looking for funding to ensure the Free Exercise rights of Catholics in uniform. Why not?

 

http://www.catholicvote.org/military-priests-face-arrest-for-celebrating-mass-in-defiance-of-shutdown/

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Maximum Pain to the People

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If anyone still thinks the administration isn’t doing everything possible to cause maximum suffering during the shutdown, take a look at this.

The National Park Service WEBSITE has been shut down. That’s right, a static website that can just sit there and be a website.

Take a look… http://www.nps.gov/

 

Folks this is the biggest load of bullshit you’ve ever been fed.  Shutting down the government doesn’t STOP web sites from working, telephones from ringing or people going to work to shut down parks that aren’t even guarded in the first place.

Every time these bastards open their mouths to “Blame” the other side, it’s a lie.  This was set up to make Americans “feel the pain” so they would complain and get the ‘government back online’.

Won’t stop welfare.  Won’t (or shouldn’t) stop Social Security checks.  There are NO cops guarding the WW II Memorial (and it was built with private funds BY THE WAY).

Hell even “Good Will” went home at the Air Force Academy yesterday on “furlough” and they aren’t even government workers.

The Air Force vs Navy game is on (because someone put up the 200k+ funds as a private donor) and Army is playing Saturday as well – and guess what?  The MONEY for the Academies are ALREADY ALLOCATED INCLUDING SPORTS!

This is all the biggest load of bullshit you’ve ever been fed.

 

Unreal: Park workers installing more barricades around WWII Memorial to keep vets out

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Unreal: Park workers installing more barricades around WWII Memorial to keep vets out; Update: Vets enter Memorial; Update: “First Amendment activities”

posted at 10:41 am on October 2, 2013 by Allahpundit

Not just barricades, either. My friends, it’s come to this:

Mounted Police now protecting the World War 2 Memorial from World War 2 veterans. Sanity restored. pic.twitter.com/EzBpV3HhEm

— BuzzFeedBenny (@bennyjohnson) October 1, 2013

I’m rushing this post out because, per Ed’s stellar round-up from earlier this morning, the Honor Flight vets are headed to the Memorial regardless. Members of Congress, among them Michele Bachmann, are already there, as are reporters of all stripes. If you use Twitter, I recommend following the Standard’s John McCormack, National Review’s Betsy Woodruff, and the Examiner’s Charlie Spiering, who took the photo I used for our front-page thumbnail of the feds actually deploying forklifts to set up gates around a memorial that’s open 24 hours a day with little supervision under normal circumstances. As I write this at a few minutes after 10:30 ET, Spiering is tweeting that the vets are scheduled to arrive within the next 15 minutes. Is your government really about to arrest 96-year-olds who fought at Guadalcanal because this bit of sub-moronic shutdown theater is too precious to them to forfeit? Stay tuned. It wouldn’t be the first own-goal they’ve scored because their pettiness overwhelmed their sense of optics.

By the way, the WWII Memorial isn’t the only one with a gate in front of it this morning. When McCormack strolled over to the World War I Memorial, he found this. No joke:

Check out the barricade at the World War One memorial—> pic.twitter.com/lJEYjY3GtR

— John McCormack (@McCormackJohn) October 2, 2013

The sign reads, “Because of the federal government shutdown, this National Park Service area is closed, except for First Amendment activities.” So if you want to protest there, you’re good. If you want to quietly remember the dead, get off the damned lawn.

An exit question via Legal Insurrection while we wait for updates: How come the Lincoln Memorial isn’t open now if it was open “>during the 1995 shutdown?

Obama’s America… pic.twitter.com/P38BDsne5d

— Morgen (@morgenr) October 2, 2013

Update: A Park Service spokesman says they were told to close the memorial by the Office of Management and Budget. Paging Darrell Issa: Time to find out who made the decision at OMB. And why.

Update: If you’re near a TV, you might want to turn on CNN. Tapper is there at the Memorial; if there’s some sort of confrontation, I assume they’ll cut to him live.

Update: The vets have arrived.

So many veterans! pic.twitter.com/FrJGxFwxRM

— Betsy Woodruff (@woodruffbets) October 2, 2013

Dan Foster says, “This is President Obama’s Bonus Army.”

 

Read the rest:  http://hotair.com/archives/2013/10/02/unreal-park-workers-installing-more-barricades-around-wwii-memorial-to-keep-vets-out/

 

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