Are Soldiers Really Being Assaulted on the DC Metro?
It sounded serious. A memo being circulated saying military personnel are being targeted for abuse by anti-war protesters in the Washington DC metro. A little digging, however, reveals that the hype was all smoke and no fire.
A memorandum circulated via email in the Department of Defense earlier this week warned of a rash of verbal assaults on uniformed members of the military on Washington D.C. Metro lines. The memo had been distributed to Department of Defense security managers and became public knowledge when it was provided to war correspondent Michael Yon, who published it on his web site Wednesday.
Within hours, soldiers, military bloggers, and their supporters were inflamed by what appeared to be an outbreak of anti-military, anti-war sentiment by protesters against an unpopular conflict in Iraq. The memo, however, now appears to have greatly exaggerated the situation, and at least one element of the story was confirmed to be false.
The key points of the memo claimed:
Washington D.C.
Dept of Transportation Federal Transit Administration sends:
Recently, there have been local incidents in which military personnel have been verbally assaulted while commuting on the Metro. Uniformed members have been approached by individuals expressing themselves as anti-government, shouting anti-war sentiments, and using racial slurs against minorities.
In one instance, a member was followed onto the platform by an individual who continued to berate her as she exited the metro station. Thus far, these incidents have occurred in the vicinity of the Reagan National Airport and Eisenhower Ave metro stations on the yellow line, however, military members should be vigilant and aware of their surroundings at all times while in mass transit.
It appeared that American soldiers in uniform had encountered multiple incidents where they became the subject of verbal abuse and even racial slurs for merely wearing their uniforms in the presence of agitated anti-war protesters. One might even infer from the memo that the harassment was orchestrated.
But there are problems with the memo, beginning with its mysterious origin.
Pajamas Media contacted the Federal Transit Administration Wednesday, and Velvet Snow, spokeswoman for the FTA, stated categorically that the agency never issued such a memo.
Lt. Col. George Wright of Army Public Affairs noted that a similar email was circulated internally by the Army Material Command at nearby Fort Belvoir, VA. When asked to provide information about specific incidents of verbal abuse, Army LTC Lee M. Packnett stated that “none of the messages sent included definitive information about incidents that occurred. They were sent for soldiers to be aware of and to be vigilant in their travels to and from work via the Metro rail system.”
Then there’s the problem surrounding the number of incidents that occurred. Washington D.C. Metro officials could only point to the existence of a single episode as the probable trigger of the memo.
Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) spokesperson Angela Gates stated that there was precisely one reported verbal assault against a female soldier on the Yellow Line recently. A female soldier was verbally harassed, left the train, was followed, re-boarded the train, and reported the incident to MTA Police once she arrived home. Gates was unable to confirm that the verbal abuse was related to anti-war sentiment, and no other reports have been filed with the MTA to substantiate insinuations of multiple incidents.
There is no pattern of verbal abuse against uniformed Department of Defense personnel in the DC Metro system. The memo sent to Department of Defense security managers was authored at a high level, and exaggerated the number of verbal assaults from one confirmed event into an apparent outbreak, while attempting to shift authorship to another federal agency.
Soldiers are not being systematically targeted by aggressive anti-war protesters in the Washington D.C. area, but someone within the Department of Defense is willing to stoke those fears, without merit.
Bob Owens blogs at Confederate Yankee.
Bob Owens blogs at Confederate Yankee.
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21 Comments
1. bianchi_roadie:Being a DC area resident, metro rider, and gov’t employee the actual harrassment surprises me, but the warning memo doesn’t. You see people in uniform (and not always US military) all the time on the metro and parts of Arlington. There are so many military, ex-military and other pro-military folk around and I’ve never personally encountered anyone personally attacking military personnel in public, but then I only ride the metro 1-2 times a month.
However, the over-reaction is par for the course and it isn’t just the DoD that sends out warnings like this. I don’t work in the DoD but every year I have to take “Defensive Travel” briefings which are just slide after slide of warnings about crime, terrorists, fire, etc. Upper management in the gov’t tends to act like over protective mothers.
May 23, 2008 - 3:58 am 2. SFC Cheryl McElroy US ARMY (RET):Just before I retired, I was stationed in D.C. and used the Metro frequently. I had never been accosted, but I can state unequivocally, that I would have decked whoever tried. This story may have been exagerated, but the fact is, that such a story is not far-fetched.
May 23, 2008 - 5:48 am 3. CaptDMO:If one is to subscribe to the Duluth Model
attempt to circumvent reality, then by all means yes, members of the militaqry are nbeing assaulted regularly. Otherwise, none have dared to indiscriminately harangue folks, simply by the virtue of their membership in the military, in MY presence.
Granted, I choose to NOT live amongst the apparent atmosphere of political justification quite often found in DC, or otherwise seen in California.
Your results may vary.
May 23, 2008 - 7:35 am 4. Are Soldiers Really Being Assaulted on the DC Metro?:[...] JD Lasica wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptIt sounded serious. A memo being circulated saying military personnel are being targeted for abuse by anti-war protesters in the Washington DC metro. A little digging, however, reveals that the hype was all smoke and no fire. [...]
May 23, 2008 - 7:51 am 5. submandave:When I saw this I was afraid it was on a par with the “flashing headights / gang initiation” sort of e-mail. I doubt seriously if this was originated officially by anyone in the DoD, it seems more likely that a senior person unfamiliar with the frequency of plausible but poorly sourced warnings on the inetrnet saw this and figured it was better to pass on the warning than not.
May 23, 2008 - 8:03 am 6. Neo:Base commanders are always sensitive to local community interactions, so issuing warnings to “be aware” are not uncommon. It doesn’t even take an incident to get one of these issued.
May 23, 2008 - 8:35 am 7. Michelle Malkin » Beltway jerks harass uniformed military personnel Update: Bob Owens vets the memo:[...] See this follow-up from Bob Owens, who reports that the memo does not check out. Glad to hear [...]
May 23, 2008 - 8:42 am 8. Bugs:As I said on Yon’s blog, this seemed really out of synch with the reality of commuting on the Metro. I’ve been riding the Blue and Yellow lines every day for ten years. There are usually a number of service members on the train, many of them wearing camo uniforms or flight suits, and I’ve never seen anyone harrass them. And as pointed out by a previous commenter, this area is filled with military, ex-military, and government personnel who would take a dim view of anyone giving a soldier a hard time.
Despite what you might see or read, political expression around here is mostly pretty low-key. Most of the loons are from out of town. I’ve never seen any kind of political argumentation at all on the Metro – even on days when anti-war protests are scheduled. I think I saw a guy carrying an anti-war sign once, but he was wearing a suit and standing in the corner minding his own business.
Most of the disputes that occur have more to do with tired, frustrated, and occasionally drunk or mentally ill commuters accidentally offending each other.
Having said that, the State Department this morning distributed an internal email containing what appears to be the Army’s original version of the warning memo. Go figure.
May 23, 2008 - 9:38 am 9. Soldiers assaulted on the DC Metro? Not so much… » Pursuing Holiness:[...] commented on the report of soldiers being harassed here. The good news: Are Soldiers Really Being Assaulted on the DC Metro? Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) spokesperson Angela Gates stated that there [...]
May 23, 2008 - 10:03 am 10. JohnFLob:There were several recent stories about military personnel in England being harassed on the British metro systems. Someone may have read these stories, and as a hoax, edited them so the incidences seemed to be occurring in the D.C. area. At the moment I can not retrieve the links to the British stories but I will keep looking.
May 23, 2008 - 10:09 am 11. Yankeemom:[...] Are Soldiers Really Being Assaulted on the DC Metro? [...]
May 23, 2008 - 10:19 am 12. Tantor:I agree with Bugs. I’ve been riding the Blue Line on the DC Metro for about five years and have not seen any negative interations with the many uniformed military members who commute every day. I’m sure some lefty looney has given crap to somebody in uniform on the subway here, it’s a big town, but it would be an anomaly, not a feature of the Metro.
I also agree with Bugs that Washington, DC, oddly enough, is not a highly politically charged town in everyday dealings. I found the corporate environment in Dallas to be far more stridently politically correct than working in the government environment in DC. Perhaps part of that has to do with government workers tending to be older and more mature than the corporate work force, which tends to be younger and immature. Corporations like to hire young and cheap and lay them off when they get old and expensive. The government hangs on to its employees until they retire or drop dead. Washington is a town full of middle aged couch potatoes, not given to wild enthusiasms.
Bugs is quite right that most of the wild-eyed radicals come from outside DC. When the anti-war movement was alive and kicking, the big demonstrations would pull in communist cells from New York and New Jersey proudly flying banners labelling themselves as such.
That said, the abuse of military people in uniform is such a charged subject since Vietnam that we just won’t stand for it. And it does still happen. I’ve seen anti-war protestors curse wounded vets with my own eyes right here on the streets of DC right next to the Capitol. You can’t imagine the feral hate in these people until you’ve seen them shouting in a rage at the White House, flecks of spit flying out of red faces, like some medieval religious exorcism.
May 23, 2008 - 10:39 am 13. Matt:I’ve been riding the Yellow Line (from Huntington to Pentagon, which includes the stops mentioned in that email) for over two years now. I see dozens of service members in uniform riding the train and have never witnessed any harassment. On occasion I see aggressive panhandlers bother riders, but they tend not to target military folks.
May 23, 2008 - 10:53 am 14. Media Mythbusters Blog » Blog Archive » Media Bias Roundup - 05/23/08:[...] military sleuth, Bob Owens, at Confederate Yankee has a killer article at Pajamas Media today: Are Soldiers Really Being Assaulted on the DC Metro? Check, double-check and check again – the facts that is… Excellent reporting Bob as [...]
May 23, 2008 - 12:02 pm 15. Bill:I used to date an Air Force Captain who was stationed at Andrews AFB and lived in Lanham, MD. Before I started dating her, whenever she came home in uniform and there was a group of Hispanics gathered outside her apartment building, they ALWAYS verbally harassed her, and it was not about the fact that she was a female, it was pointed comments about her uniform. That stopped when she got a few Air Force 1 security personnel dressed in camo (VERY scary-looking guys, I can assure you) to sneak up behind them when they did this. The lecture they got put the fear of God into them and there was no more trouble.
I’ve seen the Code Pinkos and their ilk at work, and I can say that I have no doubt that there are jerks who would verbally assault members of the military if they thought they could get away with it. Remember what was done to returning military personnel who had served in Viet Nam, they were spat on by hippies. That mind-set still exists in certain segments of the U.S. population.
May 23, 2008 - 12:24 pm 16. Enemy Territory « Buttle’s World:[...] it’s not as bad, or real, as we [...]
May 23, 2008 - 5:20 pm 17. unitacx:I live between the two stations (King St., Alexandria) and can categorically state that people here have a high degree of respect for the military, regardless of their own political views on the war. The story of soldiers in uniform being verbally assaulted here is totally bogus.
The closest thing to verbal assault would be the inane announcements, such as “Please move to the center of the car.” (The center of the car is the most crowded.) “Eating and drinking is not permitted anywhere on the Metro.” (False – Metro and the local jurisdictions have no such authority in Virginia; this only applies in DC and “anywhere on the Metro” is not DC. http://www.scn.org/~bk269/metro.html )
And of course the familiar pushing and shoving on the escalators. Definitely physical, but not an assault on the military.
May 24, 2008 - 11:41 am 18. galoob:These bogus emails are akin to Communist agitprop.
Agitprop stood for “agitation” and “propaganda.” The idea is to continually stoke fear and hatred in your target populace.
You whip up the right-wing base with stories of hippies abusing troops, etc., and then identify the hippies with the Democrats in an oblique or direct way.
Pretty simple and obvious.
May 26, 2008 - 9:43 pm 19. Anoni Moose:I once worked for a DoD support agency that made me take an overseas threat briefing before I could travel to Hawaii. Bureaucrats like to cover their butts.
May 27, 2008 - 2:41 am 20. AtomicWarBaby:Galoob’s right on target. I’ve been against Bush’s IRAQ insane war since I saw Dubya had surrounded himself with the SAME foolish, vain & clueless arrogant IDIOTS who “managed” the VIETNAM War so “brilliantly”… like DONALD RUMSFELD!
MY only comment over Memorial Day weekend to a VETERAN was to THANK him, when I saw him at a local store, for his service to our Country, to wish him & his family the BEST of Luck! He said he didn’t think he would be serving another Tour of Duty in Iraq anytime soon.
I help collect PAPERBACK BOOKS to send in the CARE Packages the father of a MARINE serving in IRAQ, has been sending for TWO YEARS!
I FOLLOW “religiously” on C-Span & other sources of UNFILTERED coverage of the Iraq War, ever since the Iraq War started, emailing my Congressmen about the desperate need for BETTER ARMORED VEHICLES, BODY ARMOR, etc.; & watch the Investigative HEARINGS, such as the ones which have uncovered truly MASSIVE & obscene levels of WAR PROFITEERING & BILLIONS missing which nobody seems to be able to ACCOUNT for, where the MONEY WENT, that was meant to IRAQ!
I was against the VIETNAM WAR, as MOST were back then, only around 1968 on, when NIXON was elected promising to END the WAR & bring the Vietnam Soldiers HOME — which we ALL knew our Gov’t. would sooner or later do, anyway!
NIXON & War Criminals like KISSINGER kept the Vietnam Quagmire going until at least 20,000 MORE American soldiers were cut down, while knowing full well they planned to PULL the PLUG, just once they had TIME from playing GOLF, like Pres. Bush, to “get around to it”!
20,000 MORE Mothers & Fathers, Pregnant WIVES, Children, Babies, Friends, Fellow Warriors, saw their LOVED ONES sacrificed unnecessarily just so NIXON & his cronies could try to “Save Face”, so the “Military Industrial Complex” which Gen. EISENHOWER warned about, could SQUEEZE a few BILLIONS more WAR PROFITS out of the Vietnam “adventure”!
Well, George Dubya BUSH is following that old VIETNAM “playbook”, & by God, it will all be WORTH it, ALL the Sacrifices by Soldiers, Marines, Navy Men & Women serving, suffering, being wounded & many dying in yet another “BIG LIE” War in another hellish foreign land.
Because HALLIBURTON is rollin’ in the dough again, & DICK Cheney’s old buddies have MOVED Halliburton’s Corporate HEADQUARTERS to an OFFSHORE Tax Haven, of all places, now based in DUBAI, United Arab Emerit– if THAT ain’t a BETRAYAL & TREASON, tell me what IS!
To me, you ain’t an AMERICAN Company even, anymore– if your corporate offices are in the MIDDLE EAST, in an ARAB country!
Bush’s Corporate buddies might as well MOVE ALL their Headquarters to COMMUNIST RED CHINA, because after all, Bush & his Regime, & all the supposedly “PATRIOTIC” Republican-owned Companies, have been busily APPEASING the CHINESE COMMUNISTS, ever since Bush was elected President!
Tell me again exactly WHY half a million young American LIVES had to be left in the Muddy Rice Paddies of COMMUNIST VIETNAM?
Wasn’t it to FIGHT & stop the “spread of Communism”?
Well, VIETNAM is still COMMUNIST, so is RED CHINA, & all you BUSH loyalists must believe it is OKEY DOKEY to “DO BUSINESS” with them, NOW! What exactly CHANGED? They are STILL COMMUNIST Nations, & Pres. Bush is actually going to attend the BEIJING OLYMPICS opening ceremonies & HONOR China’s “Police State” Leaders?
Truth is, both BUSH & John McCain will continue his policy of total APPEASEMENT to please the Communist Chinese government & people, if McCain were to be elected President, & CHINA will continue to Modernize & build up its MILITARY using AMERICAN dollars, American high tech, & one day, my Grandchildren will be faced with YET ANOTHER UNNECESSARY WAR, this time with CHINA, because REPUBLICANS talk a good game about PATRIOTISM, but will Always, always put their SHORT-TERM Business Profits, AHEAD of PATRIOTISM!
And, progressives & independents & YES, even “lefties”, will follow behind you, to sweep up the MESSES you leave behind, to repair the wreckage & damage wrought by “COWBOY” so-called Foreign Policies!
The only Americans those of us I knew in the Anti-WAR movement during Vietnam & now, that we find contemptible & despicable are all the CHICKEN HAWKS who sit in their comfy RECLINERS & agitate to send OTHER PEOPLE’s CHILDREN off to fight!
I would BET too, that anybody on the D.C. trains spitting on or calling Military men or women in Uniform names, are the EXACT SAME THUGGISH GOONS, that the BUSH campaign sent down to FLORIDA in 2000 to harrass & intimidate the citizens doing the RECOUNT! Sent on the ENRON Corporate Jet, like good little Jackbooted Young Republican Gang Members!
COLIN POWELL even expressed concern & disgust over this “Private Army” of THUGS which Bush had!
So, you can try to RE-WRITE HISTORY, but we all remember what really happened, & we will NEVER FORGET!
Maybe we can prevent the NEXT “unnessary War”, if we can LEARN from this one.
May 28, 2008 - 3:03 am 21. anti military:[...] the Washington DC metro. A little digging, however, reveals that the hype was all smoke and no fire.http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/are-soldiers-really-being-assaulted-on-the-dc-metro/The Democrats?? Anti-Military Problem – HUMAN EVENTSApr 18, 2008 … Sen. Jay Rockefeller, John [...]
Jun 4, 2008 - 9:17 am