The colonel writes a letter to the NFL

[D2Cat]

Got this in an email. Even if the colonel did not write it, it make some good points.


With fourteen NFL games on Sunday, and the 49ers on that list, there's no question that some players will protest during the national anthem.

However, Marine Colonel (Ret) Jeffery A. Powers is sick of it, so he wrote a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Gooddell.

Former Congressman Allen West posted the letter to his site:


Commissioner, I've been a season pass holder at Yankee Stadium, Yale Bowl and Giants Stadium.

I missed the '90-'91 season because I was with a battalion of Marines in Desert Storm. 14 of my wonderful Marines returned home with the American Flag draped across their lifeless bodies. My last conversation with one of them, Sgt Garrett Mongrella, was about how our Giants were going to the Super Bowl. He never got to see it.

Many friends, Marines, and Special Forces Soldiers who worked with or for me through the years returned home with the American Flag draped over their coffins.

Now I watch multi-millionaire athletes who never did anything in their lives but play a game, disrespect what brave Americans fought and died for. They are essentially spitting in the faces and on the graves of real men, men who have actually done something for this country beside playing with a ball and believing they're something special! They're not! My Marines and Soldiers were!

You are complicit in this! You'll fine players for large and small infractions but you lack the moral courage and respect for our nation and the fallen to put an immediate stop to this. Yes, I know, it's their 1st Amendment right to behave in such a despicable manner.

What would happen if they came out and disrespected you or the refs publicly?

I observed a player getting a personal foul for twerking in the end zone after scoring. I guess that's much worse than disrespecting the flag and our National Anthem.

Hmmmmm, isn't it his 1st Amendment right to express himself like an idiot in the end zone?

Why is taunting not allowed yet taunting America is OK? You fine players for wearing 9-11 commemorative shoes yet you allow scum on the sidelines to sit,kneel or pump their pathetic fist in the air. They are so deprived with their multi-million dollar contracts for playing a freaking game!

You condone it all by your refusal to act. You're just as bad and disgusting as they are. I hope Americans boycott any sponsor who supports that rabble you call the NFL. I hope they turn off the TV when any team that allowed this disrespect to occur, without consequence, on the sidelines. I applaud those who have not.

Legends and heroes do NOT wear shoulder pads. They wear body armor and carry rifles.

They make minimum wage and spend months and years away from their families. They don't do it for an hour on Sunday. They do it 24/7 often with lead, not footballs, coming in their direction. They watch their brothers carted off in pieces not on a gurney to get their knee iced. They don't even have ice! Many don't have legs or arms.

Some wear blue and risk their lives daily on the streets of America. They wear fire helmets and go upstairs into the fire rather than down to safety. On 9-11, hundreds vanished. They are the heroes.

I hope that your high paid protesting pretty boys and you look in that mirror when you shave tomorrow and see what you really are, legends in your own minds. You need to hit the road and take those worms with you!

Time to change the channel.

 

[tater74]

So true. I hope everyone gets a chance to read this post before it gets deleted.

 

[cowmilker]

Amen!

 

[Williamsv]

Amen Amen!!!

 

[farmerjan]

Triple AMEN !!!!! I am not a football fan, never could understand more than the basics of the game. I know they are talented as are all athletes at their respective games. BUT.....they wouldn't even be playing their game if it weren't for the freedoms afforded them in this country, and any one of them that doesn't have the RESPECT for the flag and the freedoms it represents, doesn't deserve the "right" to play that game. I don't agree with everything that this country does, but I sure wouldn't want to be in a place where I can't make choices. If you can't stand up and show respect for the flag, and all the things that this country has ALLOWED them to do and to be, then they don't deserve what they receive from those freedoms and should not be allowed to reap those benefits. And if they have no respect for their country, then they have no respect for their fellow players and I would not be willing to play the game with them. They are not heros or role models, they are leeches and users and losers.

 

[greybeard]

Done the 24/7 flak jacket and lead thing. I don't feel spat out when anyone exercises their constitutional right to protest. Rights are worthless if not used and I don't have to agree with the way they are used, but would far prefer they be used than not used, and not even a USMC Col (ret) gets to dictate how or when any individual uses those rights.

I tend to take a very long view of such things, and have to wonder, just how many of those lauding the Col's remarks will still support the emblem of our nation when this "govt of the people" takes away all their semiauto firearms and anything with a magazine holding more than a few rounds. Don't delude yourself--that day IS coming, and on that day, many here will proclaim that the Flag no longer represents the country it purports to.
Yes, Old Glory still flies behind my house on it's flagpole, but there is a point, at which it will be hauled down and not raised again until the ship is righted.
It just all depends on whose ox is being gored.

Keep in mind, this country has already twice trampled the flag that represented it--or at least a great many did. We once lived under the Union Jack until we trampled it in the ground at places like Valley Forge and less than a century later, about half this country raised the Stars and Bars and fought against the American flag.

 

[True Grit Farms]

The best thing to do is don't watch the football games. I've wasted half a day watching football before, but that won't happen again. Well if my little hunting partner makes it to the pro's I'd have to go and watch him play.

 

[TennesseeTuxedo]

Got this in an email. Even if the colonel did not write it, it make some good points.


With fourteen NFL games on Sunday, and the 49ers on that list, there's no question that some players will protest during the national anthem.

However, Marine Colonel (Ret) Jeffery A. Powers is sick of it, so he wrote a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Gooddell.

Former Congressman Allen West posted the letter to his site:


Commissioner, I've been a season pass holder at Yankee Stadium, Yale Bowl and Giants Stadium.

I missed the '90-'91 season because I was with a battalion of Marines in Desert Storm. 14 of my wonderful Marines returned home with the American Flag draped across their lifeless bodies. My last conversation with one of them, Sgt Garrett Mongrella, was about how our Giants were going to the Super Bowl. He never got to see it.

Many friends, Marines, and Special Forces Soldiers who worked with or for me through the years returned home with the American Flag draped over their coffins.

Now I watch multi-millionaire athletes who never did anything in their lives but play a game, disrespect what brave Americans fought and died for. They are essentially spitting in the faces and on the graves of real men, men who have actually done something for this country beside playing with a ball and believing they're something special! They're not! My Marines and Soldiers were!

You are complicit in this! You'll fine players for large and small infractions but you lack the moral courage and respect for our nation and the fallen to put an immediate stop to this. Yes, I know, it's their 1st Amendment right to behave in such a despicable manner.

What would happen if they came out and disrespected you or the refs publicly?

I observed a player getting a personal foul for twerking in the end zone after scoring. I guess that's much worse than disrespecting the flag and our National Anthem.

Hmmmmm, isn't it his 1st Amendment right to express himself like an idiot in the end zone?

Why is taunting not allowed yet taunting America is OK? You fine players for wearing 9-11 commemorative shoes yet you allow scum on the sidelines to sit,kneel or pump their pathetic fist in the air. They are so deprived with their multi-million dollar contracts for playing a freaking game!

You condone it all by your refusal to act. You're just as bad and disgusting as they are. I hope Americans boycott any sponsor who supports that rabble you call the NFL. I hope they turn off the TV when any team that allowed this disrespect to occur, without consequence, on the sidelines. I applaud those who have not.

Legends and heroes do NOT wear shoulder pads. They wear body armor and carry rifles.

They make minimum wage and spend months and years away from their families. They don't do it for an hour on Sunday. They do it 24/7 often with lead, not footballs, coming in their direction. They watch their brothers carted off in pieces not on a gurney to get their knee iced. They don't even have ice! Many don't have legs or arms.

Some wear blue and risk their lives daily on the streets of America. They wear fire helmets and go upstairs into the fire rather than down to safety. On 9-11, hundreds vanished. They are the heroes.

I hope that your high paid protesting pretty boys and you look in that mirror when you shave tomorrow and see what you really are, legends in your own minds. You need to hit the road and take those worms with you!

Time to change the channel.

I agree.

 

[HDRider]

Done the 24/7 flak jacket and lead thing. I don't feel spat out when anyone exercises their constitutional right to protest. Rights are worthless if not used and I don't have to agree with the way they are used, but would far prefer they be used than not used, and not even a USMC Col (ret) gets to dictate how or when any individual uses those rights.

I tend to take a very long view of such things, and have to wonder, just how many of those lauding the Col's remarks will still support the emblem of our nation when this "govt of the people" takes away all their semiauto firearms and anything with a magazine holding more than a few rounds. Don't delude yourself--that day IS coming, and on that day, many here will proclaim that the Flag no longer represents the country it purports to.
Yes, Old Glory still flies behind my house on it's flagpole, but there is a point, at which it will be hauled down and not raised again until the ship is righted.
It just all depends on whose ox is being gored.

Keep in mind, this country has already twice trampled the flag that represented it--or at least a great many did. We once lived under the Union Jack until we trampled it in the ground at places like Valley Forge and less than a century later, about half this country raised the Stars and Bars and fought against the American flag.

The issue is complicated. There may come a time, and I agree it appears it will, when the flag does not represent the ideal of America, but rather the ghost of America.

At this point, I think the protests are to gain attention for the protester, not the perceived misdeed. The protest seems shallow, and for that reason, I too consider it ill conceived.

Thank you for your service, and thank you for reminding us why WE CAN protest.

 

[kerley]

Got this in an email. Even if the colonel did not write it, it make some good points.


With fourteen NFL games on Sunday, and the 49ers on that list, there's no question that some players will protest during the national anthem.

However, Marine Colonel (Ret) Jeffery A. Powers is sick of it, so he wrote a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Gooddell.

Former Congressman Allen West posted the letter to his site:


Commissioner, I've been a season pass holder at Yankee Stadium, Yale Bowl and Giants Stadium.

I missed the '90-'91 season because I was with a battalion of Marines in Desert Storm. 14 of my wonderful Marines returned home with the American Flag draped across their lifeless bodies. My last conversation with one of them, Sgt Garrett Mongrella, was about how our Giants were going to the Super Bowl. He never got to see it.

Many friends, Marines, and Special Forces Soldiers who worked with or for me through the years returned home with the American Flag draped over their coffins.

Now I watch multi-millionaire athletes who never did anything in their lives but play a game, disrespect what brave Americans fought and died for. They are essentially spitting in the faces and on the graves of real men, men who have actually done something for this country beside playing with a ball and believing they're something special! They're not! My Marines and Soldiers were!

You are complicit in this! You'll fine players for large and small infractions but you lack the moral courage and respect for our nation and the fallen to put an immediate stop to this. Yes, I know, it's their 1st Amendment right to behave in such a despicable manner.

What would happen if they came out and disrespected you or the refs publicly?

I observed a player getting a personal foul for twerking in the end zone after scoring. I guess that's much worse than disrespecting the flag and our National Anthem.

Hmmmmm, isn't it his 1st Amendment right to express himself like an idiot in the end zone?

Why is taunting not allowed yet taunting America is OK? You fine players for wearing 9-11 commemorative shoes yet you allow scum on the sidelines to sit,kneel or pump their pathetic fist in the air. They are so deprived with their multi-million dollar contracts for playing a freaking game!

You condone it all by your refusal to act. You're just as bad and disgusting as they are. I hope Americans boycott any sponsor who supports that rabble you call the NFL. I hope they turn off the TV when any team that allowed this disrespect to occur, without consequence, on the sidelines. I applaud those who have not.

Legends and heroes do NOT wear shoulder pads. They wear body armor and carry rifles.

They make minimum wage and spend months and years away from their families. They don't do it for an hour on Sunday. They do it 24/7 often with lead, not footballs, coming in their direction. They watch their brothers carted off in pieces not on a gurney to get their knee iced. They don't even have ice! Many don't have legs or arms.

Some wear blue and risk their lives daily on the streets of America. They wear fire helmets and go upstairs into the fire rather than down to safety. On 9-11, hundreds vanished. They are the heroes.

I hope that your high paid protesting pretty boys and you look in that mirror when you shave tomorrow and see what you really are, legends in your own minds. You need to hit the road and take those worms with you!

Time to change the channel.

I agree.

Well said and I agree