Saturday, April 09, 2005
ANOTHER VIETNAM? NOT FOR RETURNING TROOPS
Sixty people turned up in Washington last March to protest against the war. CNN covered this important event. But no mention by CNN of this:
Thousands lined Portland’s Congress Street on Friday to cheer for the state’s servicemen, its emergency workers and the NFL champion New England Patriots.
Billed as the city’s biggest ticker-tape parade, the event featured hundreds of soldiers, sailors and other members of the military marching in front of an enthusiastic crowd, estimated at 30,000.
Onlookers bellowed excitedly as each contingent of soldiers paraded into view. The marchers were met by shredded paper, a multitude of small U.S. flags and signs that read: “Welcome Home Heroes” and “America Rocks!"
Hit the link for photo galleries. Latest US polls are interesting; asked “How confident are you that U.S. policies in Iraq will be successful?”, 53% were very or somewhat confident while 42% were not very confident or not confident at all; asked to agree or disagree with the statement “The United States and the world are safer today without Saddam Hussein in power”, 71% agreed or agreed strongly; only 21% disagreed.
UPDATE. Major John writes:
At least in Chicago, when my unit came back from OEF a couple of weeks ago, we got coverage on all the local TV and a few lines in the papers. Of course, we are surrounded by “Jesusland”, so maybe the media was frightened that a fundamentalist Christian mob would burn them at the stake if they didn’t acknowledge us. Beats me …