Just Wondering

[Calvin09]

Just a question I'd like to ask some of you Marines is how does it make you feel whenever you encounter people who protest you guys. Like when you meet people who call you babykiller and spit where you walk. I've met people on other sites (mostly youtube) who say things like all you guys do is go around Iraq murdering, torturing, and raping civilians. How can you guys stand it when people say things like this, they act like once someone joins the military they instantly become some kind of heartless monster. I even have to go to school sometimes and deal with the same stuff coming from my friends (who I feel like I'm starting to grow apart from because of the way they view this country and our military). I know I should be able to deal with these people in my own way, but how do you guys deal with them?
:flag:

[BR34]

I've honestly never ran across that type of person, in person. I've met more supportive people than non-supportive. But I think to lash out at them physically would go against what we're supposed to be standing for--defending the Constitution.

Let them say what they want, let them spit on the ground, and shrug it off. If they touch you or spit on you, make it your personal mission to assure they will never touch another person as long as they live.

[Travbabble]

One weekend on liberty at SOI, my friend and I decided to go to LA. We were right on the strip, and we went to see 300 at hans chinese theater. On the way up there, we saw people setting booths up, and some of the streets being closed, and we were wondering wtf was going on. Well, after the movie, we come outside, and there was a f*cking hippie convention! There was about 30,000 people there they said, all to protest the war. Well, when you see two new marines walking around, it's not hard to tell what they are lol. High and tights, walking in step, people knew we were marines. We didn't want any trouble, so we were just going to go back to the hotel and get a cab somewhere else. We had to walk through the crowd to our hotel though! Hippies are probably the meanest, rudest, most disrespectful a-holes I've ever seen. We got spit at, got dirty looks, and had people yelling at us who had no idea who we were! Damn, it ****ed us off. Up to this point we hadn't been wearing any USMC shirts, but we knew a shop that carried some. So we went there, and I got a shirt that said "When it absolutely, positively must be destroyed overnight........" Then had a giant EGA underneath. My friend got a similarly moto shirt, and we walked straight back in there. :D I really don't give two ****s what other people think about me, I just face it head on. LA was the exception to the rule. More often than not, people are thanking me and shaking my hand.

[KuperKMP]

It depends on the mood I'm in at the time, but I have seen plenty, being in central coast California for so long. I've shrugged it off most of the time. There was one guy that got confused as hell when I was in my charlies, I extended my hand and said, "Thanks for your support." (I was instructed to do that one by Sgt Jimenez back at MCT). For the most part though anyone that sees me in uniform is supportive or at least silent. The one thing I'd advise though is to not to be confrontational, we don't need tomorrows headline to be "Marine Starts Fistfight at Peace Rally," because you know it will be.

[WalkingMan]

I had some bad experiences back in the 1960's, during the Vietnam War, but there are some new things going on today that one should be aware of.

There is a high probability that the people who confront you today are, for all practical intents and purposes, jihadists, even if they look like or are actually American citizens. There is no practical difference between an Islamic jihadist and a jihadist sympathizer.... they are cut from the same evil, Islamic cloth.

There is a really good chance that these people have cameras running, and a working script... this is called Pallywood (Palestinian Hollywood), and what they do, is create propaganda films, with the Marines (or other service personnel) as the star 'bad guy' in their movie production.

They will try to bait the Marine into behaving badly, but they will also do thing like bump into the person, then throw themselves to the ground, and after they get done 'splicing and dicing' the video footage, the person will look like the bad guy even if they did nothing wrong.

Best Practice, in my opinion, is to avoid the situation entirely, as much as possible.

There is nothing so low and slimy, that a jihadist or one of his bedfellows will not stoop to it, given the opportunity.

[Travbabble]

Just to clarify, we didn't actually say anything, we just walked back through showing our pride.