Taunting the Wounded

It's often said that one lesson the "antiwar" left learned from Vietnam is not to vilify American soldiers. True enough, by and large you don't hear the kind of demonization that was the stock in trade of anti-Vietnam agitators like John Kerry*.

But that doesn't mean the left respects the troops. Instead, it seeks to exploit their sacrifice by describing them as "children" and as victims. Sheehanoia is the most obvious manifestation of the former, and CNSNews.com describes a particularly sick example of the latter:

The Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., the current home of hundreds of wounded veterans from the war in Iraq, has been the target of weekly anti-war demonstrations since March. The protesters hold signs that read "Maimed for Lies" and "Enlist here and die for Halliburton." . . .

Code Pink Women for Peace, one of the groups backing anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan's vigil outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford Texas, organizes the protests at Walter Reed as well. . . .

Kevin Pannell, who was recently treated at Walter Reed and had both legs amputated after an ambush grenade attack near Baghdad in 2004, considers the presence of the anti-war protesters in front of the hospital "distasteful."

When he was a patient at the hospital, Pannell said he initially tried to ignore the anti-war activists camped out in front of Walter Reed, until witnessing something that enraged him.

"We went by there one day and I drove by and [the anti-war protesters] had a bunch of flag-draped coffins laid out on the sidewalk. That, I thought, was probably the most distasteful thing I had ever seen. Ever," Pannell, a member of the Army's First Cavalry Division, told Cybercast News Service.

"You know that 95 percent of the guys in the hospital bed lost guys whenever they got hurt and survivors' guilt is the worst thing you can deal with," Pannell said, adding that other veterans recovering from wounds at Walter Reed share his resentment for the anti-war protesters.

"We don't like them and we don't like the fact that they can hang their signs and stuff on the fence at Walter Reed," he said. "[The wounded veterans] are there to recuperate. Once they get out in the real world, then they can start seeing that stuff (anti-war protests). I mean Walter Reed is a sheltered environment and it needs to stay that way."

The Code Pinkos, of course, have the right to express their opinions, but perhaps this is an occasion on which Congress should impose some reasonable time, place and manner restrictions. If a woman on her way to an abortion clinic is entitled not to be harassed by noisome protesters, isn't the same true of men like Kevin Pannell, who have made the penultimate sacrifice for a noble cause?

* The haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam.

From the Opinion Journal