Columbia University Students Boo Wounded Iraq Veteran
It was just so convenient, wasn’t it? Remember how we were told that ROTC didn’t belong on college campuses–those havens of “free speech” and “tolerance”–because the military policy “don’t ask, don’t tell” was anathema to the aforementioned lofty tenets? Well, at Columbia University, they’re showing what a convenient load of crap that all was. (h/t Glenn Reynolds)
Columbia University students heckled a war hero during a town-hall meeting on whether ROTC should be allowed back on campus.
“Racist!” some students yelled at Anthony Maschek, a Columbia freshman and former Army staff sergeant awarded the Purple Heart after being shot 11 times in a firefight in northern Iraq in February 2008. Others hissed and booed the veteran.
Maschek, 28, had bravely stepped up to the mike Tuesday at the meeting to issue an impassioned challenge to fellow students on their perceptions of the military.
“It doesn’t matter how you feel about the war. It doesn’t matter how you feel about fighting,” said Maschek. “There are bad men out there plotting to kill you.”
Several students laughed and jeered the Idaho native, a 10th Mountain Division infantryman who spent two years at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington recovering from grievous wounds.
Yup, there’s that tolerance.
More than half of the students who spoke at the meeting — the second of three hearings on the subject — expressed opposition to ROTC’s return. Many of the 200 students in the audience held anti-military placards with slogans such as, “1 in 3 female soldiers experiences sexual assault in the military.”
In 2005, when the university last voted to reject ROTC’s return, it cited the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
That policy was overturned in December, but resistance remains.
“Transpeople are part of the Columbia community,” said senior Sean Udell at the meeting, referring to the military’s current ban on transgender soldiers.
That’s called “moving the goalposts”, which I’m surprised they know about at Columbia, the perennial Ivy League Football bottom feeder. Glenn Reynolds warns that the sanctimonious brats better be careful, though:
[I]n these days of constrained budgets and an angry, aware electorate, heavily subsidized sectors like higher education — and Columbia, despite its private nature, is itself heavily dependent on government subsidies — should think twice about appearing anti-American. It’s not the 1960s anymore.
Far from it–though I know we’ve still got a few “dreamers” around here.
Not much changes since the 60’s I guess.I imagine one can only hope for a major ceiling collapse.
Thanks for posting this, Marc.
This conduct is beyond intolerance, beyond ignorance, beyond disgusting.
“Maschek, 28, had bravely stepped up to the mike Tuesday at the meeting to issue an impassioned challenge to fellow students on their perceptions of the military.”
As if Mr. Masheck needed courage to stand in front of a bunch of whining, ignorant, pissants.
And the U.S. better damned well be paying for Mr. Masheck’s education, in full! If that is not happening, Senators and Reps from RI better remedy that situation.
Shameful.
ROTC should be back in public universities. Just like gay marriages should be preformed in public spaces.
It works both ways.
In the 1960’s as a Providence College ROTC cadet I was spit on and called a “baby killer” by the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society.) Ironically, last year I was asked to be the guest speaker at the ROTC Commissioning Ceremony on campus.
It was a wonderful experience for me to speak about my military career and to express my gratitude to the newly minted second lieutenants.
I made a point that soldiers don’t create wars – politicians do. But soldiers die for democratic principles and for the mistakes politicans sometimes make.
My comments included a reference to my anger at those whose protests caused my commissioning to be moved off campus. It was only later in my life that I realized how my military service was in part to protect their right to free speech, even though I vehemently disagreed with their position on the Viet Nam war and on the importance of military service.
I will always be proud of my military service and believe that freedom comes at a price that only some are willing to pay.
This gives me so much rage right now. I’m an Iraq/Afghanistan Vet. The buttheads at Columbia University should be kissing Mr. Maschek’s ass for his sacrifice! I apologize for profanity, but I am just so ticked. At least Vets these days are treated better, despite what happened at Columbia.
I suspect this is more of the “fraudulent consensus” common to the “elites”. I suspect military service may come easier to those closer to “blue collar”. They know that it is seldom that you “get a break”, that you have to make your own way, and there are people who are “out to get you”.
“Soldiers die for what other people believe”
Could not help but think of the denigration of Max Cleland by Draft Dodging cowards Karl Rove and Saxby Chambliss in the 2002 Georgia senate race, who questioned the triple amputee war vet’s patriotism and photoshopped a picture of Cleland with Bin Laden.
Here’s sammy trying to turn this around-this incident was shameful,period.
There were plenty of draft dodgers around during Vietnam,including President Clinton.
I personally opposed the Iraq War but it would never occur to me to be rude to someone who was serving their country.
If anything,these soldiers today are being sent on repeat tours in the combat zone,and that has to be worse on them than the single tour we had to do in Vietnam.
At this point I’d like to see us out of Afghanistan also.
I don’t just blame the students-it’s the anti-American human trash that infests the faculties of so many institutions of higher learning that feed them the poison.
I’m not making a generalization here,but certain schools are known for this.One needn’t look far in RI.
A sterling example of one of the Left’s core “principles.”
But don’t question their patriotism.
“If anything,these soldiers today are being sent on repeat tours in the combat zone”
And why is that? To avoid a draft. If we only sent our soldiers into battle for one tour, we’d run out of soldiers and need to implement the draft again. Yet these ingrates instead jeer someone who has protected them and kept their freedoms.
These were the same people screaming for blood on September 12, 2001.
Then again, many of them were 8 or 9 years old then. No sense of recent history as the events of almost 10 years ago aren’t being taught in schools yet.
Hey Swazool-
Sodomite marriages can, and are, held in public. I could have a marriage with my parakeets-I’m sure Rabbi Flam, Pastor Clunker and Father Shelton would be glad to officiate.
Just don’t force your beliefs on the rest of us and make us pay the budget busting bills for health care, pension benefits, life insurance, etc. for these pathetic creatures.
Tommy,
You are a perfect example of how tolerant the right is as well.
tommy is just another loudmouth ass bag and most likely a complete coward. I often think that he is probably a plant put out here to make the right look bad. He does a great job of it. Either way he is just a loudmouth school yard bully.
We should reinstate the draft and have all able-bodied men and women serve. Starting with the elite at Columbia University.
It really does come down to some things are more important than same sex marriage and gay lesbian bisexual transgender preferences and our personal interests.
Like parents raising kids to understand that decent people respect the service men and women who sacrifice to defend the U.S. and the freedom that allows them and their kids to stand up and boo such a man.
Are they really so removed from our men and women, of their own generation, who serve in the military? That alone is reason to make sure ROTC is on every college campus, in every hight school, in this country.
Do parents not teach their kids that there is a difference between the people who serve in our military and those in Washington DC who make the policies and decisions with which we might disagree?
Do parents not teach their kids to shut their mouths and LISTEN and HEAR what someone with Mr. Maschek’s experience has to say?
Whatever happened to keeping the mouth closed, in deference to someone who has more than earned the RIGHT to express his opinion, to state his case, to share his feelings.
What has happened to us? I grew up in the 70s-80s, and my parents instilled that respect in me. What the heck is wrong with the parents and these kids who have grown up in the 90s and last decade, who lived through 9/11, that they would act this way.
It’s shameful, and it’s sad, and it feels like we have become a society not only without basic civility, but without any sense of treating each other the way we would like others to treat us.
Riborn, what happened is very simple: These kids have been indoctrinated by Leftist teachers since they entered public school and have suffered twelve years of brainwashing.
They are like the Palestinian kids who are taught that suicide bombing is an ideal career choice.
I am a leftist. I am a liberal. I am all that you hate. But every year when I was a kid my dad brought me to the Bristol 4th of July parade. He didn’t care if we goofed off during the kids marching bands, or most of the bs that parade puts on, but when the soldiers came by we stood and clapped. We were told to. We were taught respect. I respect the men and women who represent our country.
It is true liberals have people like those in Columbia, just like conservatives have those like Fred Phelps who picked out side dead soldiers funerals.
But Fred Phelps isn’t a conservative. In fact, he is a Democrat.
Get your facts straight.
And I can oppose you without hating you, although you can’t say the same.
swazool-you may be a liberal,but you’re pretty grounded from what i can tell.
My dad’s generation were all liberals in my family-all were also war veterans.
Myself and two of my cousins served in Vietnam and we’re all conservative.Go figure.
Fred Phelps and his inbred nitwit church are scum,plain and simple-don’t conflate them with conservatives.
These children at Columbia are spoiled ingrates who probably were shamed to see a man who also wanted an education but took the time to do something dangerous and selfless on their behalf,even if they don’t realize it.
Let me put it this way-if I ran into a guy who served in the North Vietnamese Army and fired rockets at me,I’d buy him a drink and have respect for him for serving his country.
If it were one of those traitorous professors,I’d piss in his drink.
Do you understand?