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Chapel Hill: After Action Report

January 8, 2008

George Samek and the NC Eagles were out to counter the moonbats at UNC-Chapel Hill recently.

Chapel Hill has a long-standing tradition of encouraging freedom of expression and dissension.

During the 1969-70 academic year thousands of UNC students cut classes and risked arrest to take a stand against the Vietnam War.

In January 2007, after President Bush announced his decision to increase the number of troops in Iraq, an influx of anti-war protesters came out of the woodwork at UNC to express their opposition.

“Our goal of change is to press upon Congress to stop the surge,” local protest organizer Allen Spalt said at a Franklin Street protest following Bush’s announcement.

Throughout 2007 protests continued, and while many protests remained civil, some called for police intervention and arrests.

On Feb. 16, six members of UNC’s branch of Students for a Democratic Society were arrested for staging a sit-in at the office of U.S. Rep. David Price, D-N.C.

Although not a war advocate, Price voted to increase funding for the troops in Iraq in an attempt to finance equipment and limit American casualties.

But the SDS members said that regardless of his motives, Price should have opposed the increase.

“We felt like they weren’t listening to us, and we felt like we were getting the same rhetorical answers as always,” SDS member and UNC sophomore Ben Carroll said after being arrested. “We wanted to make it clear that we were not leaving until he heard us.”

SDS is a national organization that has not existed since the mid-1970s, but three students at UNC restarted the organization on campus in September 2006.

On March 20 - the fourth anniversary of the Iraq War - SDS had grown to include about 500 members.

The members walked out of class and marched to Franklin Street to commemorate the lives lost since the war’s inception and demand the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

At the most recent Iraq protest on Nov. 15, SDS members carried a handmade black coffin filled with black-and-white pictures of victims of the war from both the Iraqi and American sides.

“No justice, no peace - U.S. out of the Middle East,” protesters chanted as they marched from the Pit to the Army recruitment center at 1502 E. Franklin St.

“As an apparatus of the state that allows the war to continue, recruiting stations are perhaps the most relevant targets of anti-war protests.” Carroll said in a Nov. 26 letter to the editor in The Daily Tar Heel.

“If there is no one to fight the war, the war cannot continue.”

Counter-protesters, including a number of veterans and members of the Gathering of Eagles, met the students, waving American flags and urging passing cars to honk in support of the troops.

“These are just young kids who don’t know any better,” said George Samek, a veteran who served in the Vietnam War for two years and a member of the Gathering of Eagles.

“We support our military, and these kids are sitting at the mall sucking down Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.”

Carroll said SDS will continue protesting in an attempt to shut down the East Franklin recruiting station.

“On Nov. 15, we shut down the recruiting station for the entire day, meaning they could not recruit more young people to kill and be killed,” he said.

Written by Kit Lange · Filed Under After Action Reports 

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One Response to “Chapel Hill: After Action Report”

  1. War Pictures on January 10th, 2008 2:15 pm

    [...] Chapel Hill: After Action Report [...]

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