What the News didn't report about the gathering of eagles

Sunday, March 18, 2007
The REAL Gathering of Eagles Count! What Gives With Fox News?
Let me start by saying that the Gathering of Eagles vigil on Saturday March 17, 2007, to protect the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and show support for our troops fighting terrorism,was an overwhelming success on every possible front.

We had massive crowds, despite frigid weather and a snowstorm that made travel in the Northeast a virtual nightmare for many who made the trip anyway. (Our bus to DC got stuck when we pulled off the highway on a scheduled stop to pick up some veterans in Waterbury, CT. But we got out, and pushed it out of the show drift, and away we went. We are veterans, mind you, we are in the habit of overcoming adversity.)

We made a major statement to America, and to the pro-terrorism forces in our midst, and we did it without any major incidents or violence.

My group arrived at the GOE site at about 9 a.m, under sunny skies but with temps hovering around 40 degrees and a brutally cold wind blowing. I checked in with the organizers, was given my speaker's badge and proceeded to wait out the two hours until it was my turn to address the gathering.

Just before 10 a.m. when the crowd gathered before the speakers' platform was at its largest and mostly densely packed, I took it upon myself to do a little leg work to get an idea how many people were there. I noted the group's boundaries, and twice walked the perimeter's length and width, once then, once later when most people were gone.

It came to approximately 200 feet across by 600 feet deep. I stress here, these are approximate numbers. That gives a total of about 120,000 square feet. I assigned an area 3 feet by 3 feet (9 square feet) per person, which is a lot more room than many people were taking up, but nonetheless means that in that area, at that time, there were approximately 13,000 people gathered.

The GOE website says the Park Service is putting our numbers at 30,000 compared to 4,000 or so for the pro-terrorists.

I don't have access to all their figures, but I do know that in one place at one time we had close to 13,000 people. My methods were general, not scientific, but reasonable.

The media gave conflicting numbers all day, and ended up trying to say that the vets were outnumbered by the pro-terrorism forces, as if that matters. Fact is, just about everyone agrees that all the Fonda/Sheehan forces could muster was about 4,000 demonstrators and terrorists.

If I am wrong by fully half in my estimates, which I'm not, but let's just say if, then we still outnumbered the terrorists by double. Did you hear that, politicians who didn't bother to attend or support us?

Did you hear that National VFW and American Legion officers, who never once made a formal statement or news release supporting our gathering? Both politicians and veterans organizations get their power from the same place, veterans joining and veterans voting.

America's politicians and main veterans organizations failed miserably in this endeavor. But we didn't.

I am not trying to be an expert at crowd estimates here, but the fact is, the media has been downplaying the veterans' presence at the gathering, and overstating our conduct, which we all pretty much expected, and which we got. But the crowd estimates that have come out are pure nonsense, and what surprises me the most is that FOX News is right out there with the Associated Press in handing out this tripe.

FOX apparently did assign a reporter to stop by the GOE site, but the network's remote broadcast truck was stationed on Henry Bacon Drive adjacent to the pro-terrorist rally headlined by Cindy Sheehan that started this whole thing in the first place, and the stand up reporting was done from there all day. One of my fellow veterans listened to one of the live reports in which the lady doing the reporting said that the two camps had equal numbers of people. How do you make that claim when you are hundreds of yards away from the GOE site?

How do you account for all the people on the sidewalks along Constitution Avenue who were protecting our rally site from the pro-terrorism forces who were trying to force their way in, or our members who stationed themselves along the pro-terrorists' march route to the Pentagon, or those who went over to Arlington, or those who stayed at The Wall? How do you? I'd love to hear the answer.

Fox spent precious little time at the GOE, and grossly underestimated the numbers of veterans there, as did the Associated Press, which always intentionally inflates the numbers of anti-American demonstrators and exaggerates the conduct of anyone who opposes them.

For instance, did Fox show any of the foul-mouthed middle aged women who repeatedly passed through the veterans' rally area, three blocks away from the pro-terrorists permitted rally site, trying to incite violence with the vets? Did Fox, the AP, Washington Post or any other news organization quote these vicious foul-mouthed middle-aged freak show candidates when they were deliberately trying to create confrontations with the veterans?

What does the Main Stream, American Terrorist Media, which in this case, includes Fox News have to show for their efforts to promote pro-terrorism? A couple of idiots who tried to inflame the veterans got their stupid signs taken away from them, and a couple others got their feelings hurt in shouting matches.

Oh, the humanity. Too freakin' bad. Bummer. Sorry 'bout that. If you can't take the heat, go live at the North Pole.

FOX has a lot of support in the American military and veteran community because it is the only network that has even made an effort to report that we exist anywhere except in old Rambo movies and anti-war propaganda. But Fair and Balanced seemed to take a tilt over to the Unfair and Unbalanced side on Saturday. I would strongly recommend that the bean counters at FOX take a hard look at the balance sheets of the New York Times and other media outlets that are paying the price for supporting communism and other terrorists.

If it comes down to it, America's veterans can turn on the Internet and turn off the Cable TV just as we started cancelling our subscriptions to the print media and turning off the nightly evening news. Just a suggestion.

A few other notes from the gathering:
Late Saturday afternoon, at about 4 p.m., the pro-terrorism forces came back to DC, in the area of the Vietnam and Lincoln Memorials, after their rally at the Pentagon.

The vast majority of veterans from the Gathering of Eagles had long since departed, but some of us were still there. Our group couldn't start the bus ride back to CT until 5 p.m. due to regulations about how long the driver had to be off the road.

Leading the pro-terrorist returnees was a military-style group of about 100 (police agree with this assessment) carrying a Palestine Authority flag, and marching in a manner reminiscent of the Hezbollah style that we often see on the evening news.

They were chanting in a foreign language, that sounded Arabic, but I am no expert here. The chants sounded very much like those you hear in extremist, anti-American, anti-Israel demonstrations.

The group turned toward Constitution Ave., then suddenly veered toward Henry Bacon Drive, and tried to go over the fences that had been erected to keep their demonstration contained there earlier in the day.

Police later said their intent was to break down three rows of fences and overwhelm the few remaining guards at The Wall and then deface it. In addition to their first strike at the fencing, members of the terrorist group also started heaving bottles at the police.

At this point cops from all over converged on the scene (several hundred, not thousands.) As I said, this was witnessed by dozens of veterans.

The terrorists never got past the first row of fencing. The cops were on them in a matter of minutes, and some of their group ran up side streets with the cops hot after them.

A solid row of cruisers and motorcycle police was formed going down Henry Bacon Drive between the returning marchers and The Wall. The police were unbelievably supportive of the vets, and chatted freely with us.

The rank and file welcomed us back any time and said they would a million times rather have us in DC than the so-called anti-war crowd.

At 5 p.m. my group walked two blocks up to 21st and Constitution, boarded our bus and headed home, one of the last contingents to leave. At the point the wall was secure, but have no doubts, an attempt was made on it, and had we not raised such a ruckus through the GOE efforts, it very well may have succeeded.

In an earlier post I quoted a line from the Magnum P.I. television show in which he was asked, after a return trip to Vietnam and all the problems it caused him and his friends, what would have happened if they hadn't gone.

Considering that I am dead tired, physically and emotionally, the end of my driveway is a solid block of frozen snow, sleet and slush that accumulated while I was gone, my family missed our traditional St. Paddy's Day corned beef dinner, which is a BIG deal in this house, the journey itself through snow, sleet, rain and gloom of night was arduous, and we now have to deal with the lying, manipulating media yet again, I'll borrow Tom Selleck's reply in that episode to answer the question, "What if we hadn't joined the Gathering of Eagles to support our troops and protect The Wall?"

We did.
posted by Ron Winter at 12:38 PM

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Ron Winter's speech in DC last Saturday

Sunday, March 18, 2007
Speech to A Gathering of Eagles
Many of the thousands of veterans and our supporters who attended the Gathering of Eagles rally and vigil in Washington, DC yesterday, March 17, were out on the sidewalks, at The Wall or countering the pro-terrorist group on Henry Bacon Drive during the formal program.

I have been asked to post the speech I gave for those who could not be there to hear it. Without further ado, I have now done so.

Gathering of Eagles
Veterans! Our first General Order is "to take charge of this post and all government property in view."
We have seized the high ground, physically and morally, and from this vantage point I see tens of thousands of veterans and our supporters carrying out the requirements of our first General Order.

We have gathered here today for many reasons: foremost among these are to protect our Memorials from pro-terrorist anarchists and vandals; and to stand in support of our active duty troops worldwide.

We also are gathered today with a singularity of purpose, and a commonality of goals - to build a bridge from the past to the future - to reverse four decades of lies and misrepresentations about America's military and its veterans, and to set the record straight about our service.

Those of us who served in Vietnam are all too familiar with the phrase, "The only war the American military ever lost." That statement, a convenient sound bite for the evening news, is an outright lie that serves as a cover story for those who helped bring about the tragic events in Southeast Asia after the fall of Saigon.

The Vietnam Memorial we are protecting today reflects the loss of more than 58,000 Americans who died while fighting for our freedoms. But what America rarely hears is that the communists in North Vietnam lost 1.4 million regular troops in that war, more than double the number of their standing army in 1965, and that the Viet Cong were completely wiped out as a military force after the Tet Offensives of 1968 and 1969.

In 1969 communist military leaders, reeling from the pounding we were giving them on the battlefield, pleaded with their political bosses to initiate surrender talks. But political missteps in America, unintentional though they may have been, squandered that opportunity and led to three more years of war - for us.

Despite those missteps, the Vietnamization program progressed on schedule and in 1972, when most American troops had left Vietnam, the north launched a full-scale invasion of the south, using 250,000 troops backed by armor and artillery. But the southern troops, aided by American air power, stood their ground. When it was over, more than half the communist invasion force had been annihilated.

To reward this effort to preserve their freedom the US Congress passed the Case-Church resolution ceasing all support for South Vietnam, and later forced the southern government to accept the unenforceable Paris Peace Accords. This was not an unintentional misstep, this was intentional treachery.

Two years later the communists invaded again, and the US government stood by idly as the south fell. When the communists launched a pogrom of butchery and slaughter resulting in the deaths of some four million inhabitants of Southeast Asia, the American media and Congress, the very people responsible for that debacle, blamed it on the Vietnam Veterans to cover their own duplicity.

These are not the musings of an aging warrior trying to create a more palatable past. These are documented historic facts!

Now we are again engaged in a difficult war against a formidable enemy. And again, members of our own Congress are proving to be our enemies' best allies. And many of the people responsible for the fall of Southeast Asia are still here, attempting once again to engineer another travesty in the Middle East.

As our troops win battle after battle, their successes are repeatedly undermined by some in our own government and the media. But this time there is a difference.

We who have suffered the falsehoods, lies and misrepresentations spread by the people who helped create the butchery of millions of Southeast Asians will not allow a similar tragedy to happen to this generation.

We who have wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, carrying the terrible burden of an unjust blame for the travesty caused by members of our own government, are here today to say this will not happen. We are here to tell the meddlers in Congress, and their anarchist supporters, Never Again!

Never again will the hard-won victories of America's military be nullified by incompetence and treachery in Congress.

Never again will the successes of America's veterans be sullied and discounted by treachery and treason in our government.

Today's gathering represents the end of our trek in the wilderness. Today we have emerged from the darkness, and today we are serving notice on America that Congress must never again be allowed to use short-term political gain as an excuse to undermine our troops and our country.

We have the will, we have the knowledge and we have the fortitude to succeed in this new mission. And we need only to look around us today to realize that we have the manpower. Because above all, this gathering shows that today, America's veterans have finally returned home.
posted by Ron Winter at 12:25 PM

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Thank you

For all of you who went to Washington on behalf of the rest of us.....Thank you. For standing in weather that most would find intolerable, for doing the right thing in protecting a symbol that so many earned thanklessly. For making me for one proud to say I know some of you who went, and as ya'll have done in the past without realizing it you represented me, my family, my country but most of all the men and women in this country who will never be able to stand up for their/our rights.

Thank you

Katie

gathering of eagles

OOOHRAH !!
Why can't the Fonda's and Sheehan's all go to Iraq? They have had their 15 mins. of limelite- NOW LET THE CAMELS PUT UP WITH 'EM !! If they do go-- I"LL ROOT FOR THE I.E.D.'s !!

GOE Where have all the Politicians gone?

Thursday, March 22, 2007
Where Have All The Politicians Gone? Gone To Jellyfish Everyone
History was made in Washington, DC, on March 17, 2007. Tens of thousands of veterans gathered from near and far to stand united in opposition to anarchists and vandals who had threatened to deface the Vietnam War Memorial and other national monuments during a pro-terrorism march on the Pentagon.

We stood up to them, we stood up for our troops, and we successfully defended our monuments, our sacred ground, and the very ideals on which this country was founded - again.

There were no major incidents of violence although a group of pro-terror anarchists was arrested after hitting a veteran in a wheelchair, incurring the wrath of other vets nearby and the police who reacted immediately and decisively. The worst commentaries the American Terrorist Media could come up with from the pro-terrorist marchers were complaints about losing their anti-American signs and getting their feelings hurt.

American flags vastly outnumbered the flags of foreign nations, veterans and supporters vastly outnumbered pro-terrorism forces, signs supporting America and the troops vastly outnumbered signs promoting socialism, communism, and terrorism. It was a politician's dream. What a photo op!

Get your picture taken with veterans of WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the War On Terror and countless operations in between. Chests full of medals. Flags and pro-America signs everywhere for a backdrop. Can't you just see it on your brochures during the next election campaign?

Well, apparently not. Because the most endangered species on the National Mall in Washington DC on Saturday, March 17, 2007, during the Gathering Of Eagles vigil was the American politician. We had one, California Congressman John Doolittle, who not only voiced support, but appeared with us and spoke on our behalf.

But everyone else was AWOL - UA for the Naval services. Where were the politicians who always show up at the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars conventions, mugging for the photographers with the National Commanders and vowing to make life immeasurably better for the vets?

Where was John McCain of all people? The Gathering of Eagles was strongly supported by the National Order of the Purple Heart which should have been close to McCain's heart!

Where was Joe Lieberman? I was there in Eastern Connecticut last September when veterans confronted Lieberman's opponent, Democrat Ned Lamont. I wrote about it when Lamont scurried away, afraid to face or even speak with the vets, many from his own party who had questions about his lack of support for the troops and the War on Terror

Lieberman made out big time on that encounter and Connecticut's vets turned out for him in droves to give him another term in the Senate. So where was he Saturday? Religious reasons keep him away? OK, I can accept that. Did religious reasons keep him from writing a letter of support for us to be read at the GOE rally?

Where was Rudy Giuliani?

Where were Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama? They all say they support the troops and are pro-America. They say they just disagree with George Bush's leadership style but really do support the troops and veterans. If you believe that I'll let you use it for a bed time story next time you can't go to sleep.

Are we to believe, that on a Saturday morning on the National Mall, within sight of our nation's Capitol, adjacent to the Vietnam Memorial, within a stone's throw of the Korean War and World War II memorials, that not one single US Congressman or Senator was in town? Not one was in a position to drop by for a few minutes and give their support to the very people who have sacrificed, bled and died so they can have a country to govern?

Here's what I think, in addition to the general belief that Congress is peopled by craven cowards and lackeys. I believe that no matter what they have said over the years, our politicians really believed all that media garbage that has been said about veterans in general and Vietnam Veterans in particular for 40 years now. Remember? Walking Time Bombs! Baby Killers! Murderers! Yeah, that crap.

I think they stayed away because they believed our gathering would either falter, or degenerate into a blood fest. I think they are so uninformed, and so spineless, so jellyfish-like in their lack of backbones, and their inability to make a stand on anything without consulting the prevailing currents of public opinion first, that they were afraid to stand up for the very people who stood up for them.

Jellyfish. Spineless, floating jellyfish, moving along at the whims of the currents. Unfortunately, while jellyfish have no spines, no willpower, and little in the way of form, they can sting and can harm if you end up in the middle of them.

Had any politicians made an effort to actually visit the GOE rally site on Saturday they would have seen some pretty tough guys, no doubt about it. Some could even be accurately referred to as intimidating.

But here is a secret. We are supposed to be intimidating. We are war veterans! We fight the bad guys. You don't win against the bad guys by sending people to fight who look and act like jelly doughnuts.

Here is another secret. For every hard ass in motorcycle leathers there were two dozen veterans in ski jackets and winter coats, who are just as tough and just as intimidating, but who would have been indistinguishable from anyone else in another location, absent their medals, badges and military patches.

Vets are representative of the military which is a microcosm of American society. They are big, small, short, tall, men and women of all ethnic and racial backgrounds, social status, economic situations and educational levels. OK, that last one is not quite accurate. Veterans as a demographic in American society are far better educated than the rest of America, despite what geniuses like John Kerry and John Murtha say about us.

So if any of the big talkers in Congress, or on the state level for that matter, had bothered to come to the GOE vigil, they would have encountered - America! But no, that couldn't happen. They were all too busy feathering their own nests, insuring their uninterrupted attendance in the halls of power and talking big, while walking small.

Talking about talking, did you notice the other element of American society that was noticeably absent from the GOE? I mean American conservative talk radio and TV commentators. Where were Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly or any of the other pretty boys of the American right who make millions off the sacrifices of the veterans and our real supporters?

They didn't cover the event beforehand, they didn't cover it during, and they didn't cover it after. Period. Big talk, no substance. You people claim to be all seeing, all knowing, all powerful but you didn't have the good sense to put your mouths where your money comes from. You didn't support the vets. You weren't there, you didn't mention us, and you have shown yourselves to be no go showboats.

Shame on the lot of you.

One exception to the above. Syndicated columnist and commentator Michelle Malkin gave us great coverage, and she showed up! Vets were only too happy to shake Michelle's hand, thank her for the coverage, and pose for pictures and videos with her.

Let me tell you other gas bags something about vets that you obviously have overlooked. We are far smarter than the average demographic, we are acutely aware of what is going on around us, and we don't forget our friends - or our enemies.

We also don't like bulls!*t throwers, and we know instinctively who they are. Michelle Malkin's stock has rocketed upward in the veteran community and she will benefit from it. I hope the rest of you wisely invested the millions that you made claiming to represent mainstream America and the vets. Your stock is plummeting.

Taking on Arnold Schwarzenegger in a phone conversation might sound like a big deal, but showing up to support the Gathering Of Eagles, in word and deed, would have been a real big deal.

Unfortunately, most of America's conservative commentators now must be relegated to a position right alongside most of America's gas bag politicians. Yeah, over there by the wall, under the sign that says Big Talking, No Substance, Cream Puffs.
posted by Ron Winter at 9:05 AM 😡

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Gathering of Eagles

I agree with Jardo. I was there in March too. We are going back this September 15 to counter them again. I stood near the Wall last time and will do so again.