Marine Sgt Mike McNulty is on activation orders to Iraq (second tour). On
December 1st, 2007, Mike went to visit a friend in Chicago before deploying to
say goodbye. In order to get to his friend's residence, and keep in mind
that Chicago is a myriad of diagonal and one-way streets, the front entrance
(right way) to the one-way street was blocked. Mike, being a Marine,
overcame and adapted by driving around the block to the other end of the street
and backing up all the way to his friend's place.
Okay. No big deal, right? No harm, no foul. But apparently only reasonable people would hold that opinion, because look what happened next.
While saying goodbye, at about 11am, he noticed a man leaning up against his
car. Mike left his friend's apartment and caught the man keying his car on
multiple sides. After caught in the process, the man told Mike, "you think
you can do whatever you want with Department of Defense license plates and
tags". (In Illinois you can purchase veteran, Marine, or medal
plates. Mike has Illinois Marine Corps license plates.) During the
exchange, he made additional anti-military comments.
I can't help but wonder what those anti-military comments were. I'm going to join the consensus at this point, and marvel at the incredible restraint shown by this Marine. It would have been completely understandable if Sgt. McNulty had turned this guy's face inside out.
What is with these people, anyway? It's one thing to be opposed to our country's military operations. I can disagree with them on that issue, and when all is said and done we can still go on about our respective days with no one the worse for wear. Hell, the First Amendment, even allows these idiots to spew all manner of short-sighted, anti-military garbage with absolutely no foundation in logic or common sense, and they have the good fortune to be in one of the few corners of this wretched little mudball of a planet in which they can actually get away with that sort of thing.
But resorting to petty vandalism just because you think all those big bad soldiers are a bunch of meanie poop-heads is the height of juvenile fuckery. I can't help but wonder whether this asshole realizes that the "political" point that he was trying to make was lost beneath the crappiness of his actions. Come on, now. Keying a car?! Way to protest there, Cesar Chavez. All you really accomplished (besides causing unnecessary property damage) was making yourself look like a colossal buttpipe.
It really bugs me that this guy is a lawyer, too. Why are so many people in the legal field such unmitigated pricks? All they ever do is give the entire profession a bad name, which makes it that much more difficult for the lawyers who are actually decent human beings. (They do exist, I swear! I think there are twelve of them.) Too many of them are like the waste of space in this story.
And of course, he had to go and screw with a Marine, just because the poor guy happened to be a convenient target for shoring up his piss-poor attitude. You know something, Mr. Grodner? For one thing, you are damn lucky you didn't get your ass handed to you. Nine out of ten people, military or civilian, would have turned you into a calzone for doing what you did. You should thank Sgt. McNulty for keeping a cool head throughout that whole scenario. Secondly, I know for a fact that, as an attorney, you were trained to look at any given situation through the eyes of a reasonable person. Thanks for proving how little most lawyers give a rat's ass about that anymore.
I was personally insulted by this story. I have a brother in the military. Currently, like Sgt. McNulty, he is in Iraq on his second tour. He is an Army Captain, and on his first tour he was awarded the Bronze Star. In my eyes, that makes him a hero. There are many other heroes just like him over there. There are more still right here in the States. Even more hail from all over the world. Grodner can think what he wants about them, but as soon as he started throwing shit at Sgt. McNulty, he was also throwing shit at every other hero in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. Most importantly to me, he threw shit at my brother. And that burns me right the fuck up.
If you read the whole story, you can see that the incident almost got buried, as the State of Illinois was reluctant to pursue charges against Counselor Asshole. Apparently, however, Blackfive jumped on it right away, and now a Chicago Tribune columnist made it public. The good folks at Blackfive have my eternal gratitude for their efforts to make the Illinois prosecutors do their damned jobs and pursue charges against that jerkoff. I'm sure all of the troops who read their blog will be thanking them as well.
Even so, I can't seem to think of that fuckhead Jay Grodner without getting royally pissed. I hope he gets hemorrhoids and a flock of pigeons takes a collective dump in his corn flakes.
