Dear Reader, John Fortier, a 77-year-old Korean War veteran hosts a peace vigil on Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) in Redondo Beach (RB), in the Los Angeles area every Friday evening. His sign reads, "War Is Not The Answer" and he flies a flag with a peace symbol. John has held this vigil since just before Pres. Bush launched the Iraq invasion in March, 2003.
To: Dick Kazan (And to you as well dear reader) From: John Fortier
Sent: Sunday, October 24, 2010 5:22 PM
Friday vigil ? One of my best ever, Dick. It had the very high and the very low and lots of normal positive in between.
In order of occurrence there are the ladies and then the idiot.
First, one lady approached from south on PCH, said she had seen me on the corner a number of times, and asked if she could sit down and ask me some questions.I'll give you details Wednesday, but she has a son in RB high school; he;s very interested in politics and could he come and interview me; and we visited for about 20 minutes. Very nice, very well informed, very complimentary and supportive.
About half way into that, another lady, whom I have exchanged 'howdys' with, joined us and fit in perfectly.
As they left, the idiot showed up. I've seen him before and he had always been neutral-subdued-positive.
Why don't I have a sign supporting the troops, thanking and congratulating them for their service? Because my sign expresses my feelings, I say, and if he wants such a sign he can make it and display it himself.
Well, he wanted to ask the same question endlessly and my patience got a little thin. And somewhere in the round-robin of repetitious Q and A, Robert, who had arrived even before I put the flag up, made a rational comment and idiot went after him like a nasty little rat on cheese - faggot, what do you know, fucking punk, etc. Robert was so cool, he tried to be reasonable, but idiot couldn't deal with it.
It was 6:24 so I started freeing myself of the cord holding my sign from blowing away, and packing up the flag and chair. I wasn't sure what would come next, some corporal punishment for his stupidity, aggression and vulgarity, or just a walk to my car. It was a walk to the car, and then Robert followed and we had a catch-up and coffee/
The background to the whole evening was very active support by lots of people. Robert waving the flag always helps, and additional people on the corner must enthuse folks. Very interesting night.
WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER
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