... and then there's a time and a place to sit down and simply shut your pie-hole:
U.S. Navy veteran Dario Raschio was all smiles Saturday as he awaited a special honor from U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, who joined him at Portland Community College's Southeast Campus to present the 100-year-old with a handful of medals.
"I feel I'm no hero," said Raschio, dynamic and spry, before the event. "I don't accept it as being a
hero. I accept it as being a part of my job."
Shortly after Wyden began speaking, though, protesters erupted in the back of the room, shouting "hands-up, don't shoot!" More than 100 pushed through the doors, banged on the windows from outside and hoisted signs.
Raschio and his daughter, Pam Brown of Portland, had a front-row seat to the spectacle. Raschio's smile faded.
Demonstrators across the country have used "don't shoot" and "hands up" as rallying cries following the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, last fall. "I can't breathe" references the death of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who died in July following a chokehold by a New York City police officer.
The medal presentation was to be the first event at a Wyden town hall, one of several the senator, D-Oregon, is holding around the state this week. After 15 minutes of shouting, Wyden persuaded the group to stop and let him proceed with the medal presentation.
hero. I accept it as being a part of my job."Using a ceremony purposed in honoring a 100 year old WWII vet's service to his country as a platform to hoist your petarded protest movement is beyond stupid and irresponsible. It puts that movement in the same boat with the bigots who protest homosexuality at funerals.
May that boat sink back to the bottom of the pit it came from.
Quickly and irrevocably.
