In response to Cabbage Seeds (translation of Los Colinas) whoever he or she may be, this is typical hogwash from some of the members of the Chester County Victory Movement. That I should have the audacity to suggest people attacked should defend themselves is criticized by this anonymous individual as if it were un-American. Some of the CCVM members also like to flip the Sixties on its head and suggest the peace movement is violent. Sorry; the CCPM was peacefully minding its own business until the CCVM came along and started verballing abusing us by calling us all kinds of loathsome names that I will not repeat here.

As for the separation, everyone has observed it; and I will not nit-pick like this anonymous individual does about members of the CCVM who might walk on our side of the street momentarily for some reason. Let's not be childish. Most of the rest of his/her comment makes no sense -- except the twisting of the incident of the two arrests we suffered.

Rich Davis, founder and organizer of the Victory Movement, emailed me asking for a meeting to discuss things not getting out of hand on the corner. I said, sure, let's talk about that. Remember, HE asked ME. I informed the CCPM steering committee and was joined by another vet member; we met at a restaurant in West Chester on a Thursday. The only agreement to come of it (and Rich fully agreed to it) was that at the close of the vigils (at 12 noon) each side would retreat to its designated corner (the CCVM to the NW; the CCPM to the SE) to make announcements or to get photos made or whatever without any harassment from the respective opposing side.

Then, two days later, at the Saturday vigil, when Noon came around several members of the CCVM insisted on pushing into our group, hollering over us and, in the case of Dee Berk, verbally insulting a wounded Vietnam veteran by over and over calling him a "traitor" a foot from his face. It escalated from there. I went across the street and asked Rich, "What happened? We agreed you wouldn't do this." Rich replied, "I don't think that's enforceable." It was clear he had not even mentioned to his group the agreement he had made with us at a meeting he had sought. So a bad scene had been set.

Things heated up, and the police were called when the fed-up vet shoved Skye's intrusive camera away. The police arrived and Rich -- who had been across the street at the time -- told his friend "Tom" the cop (Corporal Tom Gotthold) that "He (the vet) had hit Skye in the face," a statement that was so preposterous it amounted to overheated agit-prop that exercised a number of CCVM males, one of whom later apologized to me for his over-reaction that day.

Clearly not sympathetic to the antiwar side, the cops went into a pumped-up over-reaction and slammed our vet to the street. To suggest the West Chester Police in this instance were comparable to the Philly Civil Affairs squad is laughable. I've worked with the Philly Civil Affairs unit and have watched its cops in action for some 20 years, and these West Chester cops were way out of line and clearly in need of fundamental civil affairs training. It was clear to me: For these cops, it was not a civil affairs issue of sorting out citizens' rights; it was a matter of them having a chip on their shoulders and feeling "dissed" at what they deemed a failure of minute compliance. These cops need civil affairs training.

Cabbage Seeds has it all wrong.