Second in a series.
Re: “Shhh. Don’t Talk Aloud About This Protest”
Whether or not the rain continues through the weekend, Bob Rosebrock and his hardy band of, uh, mature military veterans will be standing in protest in front of the National Home of the VA on Sunday afternoon at 1 o’clock for the 457th consecutive week.
Except for Mr. Rosebrock’s regular dispatches to this newspaper, the drumbeat of protest has been silently ignored by the ubiquitous media of Los Angeles.
The very notion of a non-liberal-cause protest should be newsworthy because non-liberals rarely assume such a stance.
Had the old soldiers been protesting the treatment of three-legged, mentally deficient squirrels in a tiny Bangladesh lab, the daily newspapers would track every breath.
Instead, the elders are railing, in screaming anonymity, against the VA’s inability to accommodate injured and needy military veterans who can’t afford other options.
The VA has rented out nine sections of its 383 acres, leaving scant room to fulfill its mission of nursing veterans back to health, a mission that dates back to the 19th century.
Meanwhile, it appears to Mr. Rosebrock that he is being punished for perceived embarrassment of the VA.
Apparently on directions from the annoyed national VA director Bob McDonald and the annoyed Los Angeles VA executive director Ann Brown, Mr. Rosebrock says the VA’s normally obscure, harmless property cops are treating him as if he were an escaped criminal.
Under regular surveillance at the VA, he is facing a potential 18-month jail sentence for hanging the American flag and for taking pictures.
(To be continued)
