{"id":50067,"date":"2014-06-07T08:49:48","date_gmt":"2014-06-07T12:49:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=50067"},"modified":"2014-06-07T08:49:48","modified_gmt":"2014-06-07T12:49:48","slug":"on-sgm-archie-who-didnt-head-butt-a-protester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=50067","title":{"rendered":"On SGM Archie who didn’t head butt a protester"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ethan<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

So there’s quite a discussion going on about Sergeant Major Archie in yesterday’s post<\/a>. First, I want to apologize to the Sergeant Major – clearly he didn’t “head-butt” Mr. Arguello. The title of the post was based on the news article description of the incident according to a witness. After watching the video, there was no head-butt as I understand the word.<\/p>\n

There is a good story about Sergeant Major Archie in Stars & Stripes<\/a> and an insurgent attack that he was involved in back in October 2006 when he was First Sergeant in Iraq. You should read it to get a sense of the man.<\/p>\n

Thinking back on the event, Archie realized he was exposed running around the base, but that wasn\u2019t a concern at the time, he said.<\/p>\n

“When you\u2019re in a combat situation, you are thinking about the Marines more than yourself,” Archie said.<\/p>\n

Archie went to three different posts to supervise the Marines, bring ammunition to Marines who needed it, and fight the enemy himself.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019m a rifleman just like my Marines,” Archie said. “That means if they\u2019re fighting, I\u2019m fighting right beside them.”<\/p>\n

The battle lasted for more than an hour, during which about 60 Marines fought between 20 and 30 insurgents.<\/p>\n

After the shooting stopped, evidence was found suggesting that 11 of the insurgents had been hit, Archie said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s probably no secret that I hate protesters, especially protesters like Mr. Arguello whose only point is that they’re attention whores. Mr. Arguello, according to reports, called around Parris Island trolling for someone to give him permission to wear his DI cover for his protest. One of the people he called was SGM Archie who told him that it wouldn’t be appropriate. Arguello, apparently, didn’t like the answers he was getting, so he wore it anyway. <\/p>\n

You have to ask yourself “What was his point?” What did a DI cover have to do with Taliban prisoners? Like the IVAW protesters we’ve seen in our recent past, he only wore it for the moral authority that he perceived that the hat would lend his protest. And the attention that he could garner.<\/p>\n

The sergeant major gave him a number of opportunities to allow the theme of his protest to have it’s own moral authority without the hat and Mr. Arguello couldn’t see the light.<\/p>\n

In April of 2000, I trolled a protest against the World Bank in DC an found a youngster with a upside down US flag. I tried to explain to him about how wrong that was to display the flag in that manner. He wouldn’t listen to me, so I took his little flag and the pole to which it was attached. Arguably, that was similar to the Archie vs. Arguello incident. It was about a protest, it was about symbols, it involved me taking someone else’s property. But, I’m pretty sure that few of you would condemn me for my actions like some of you are condemning SGM Archie. <\/p>\n

Mr. Arguello, appropriating the symbolism of the Drill Instructor’s campaign cover is no different, in my mind, than the stank-ass hippie who appropriated the image of a an upside down flag. Both were used to elicit an emotional response from opponents. Both got what they asked for. But, we all have our opinions.<\/p>\n

Archie probably shouldn’t have injected his august presence in the protest, but Arguello shouldn’t have worn the cover for no good reason, either. There’s lots of blame to go around, but Archie should have elevated himself above the confrontation. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So there’s quite a discussion going on about Sergeant Major Archie in yesterday’s post. First, I … On SGM Archie who didn’t head butt a protester<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-military-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/49978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}