Columbia University students heckle war hero

[Max]

Published February 20, 2011
New York Post

Columbia University students heckled a war hero during a town-hall meeting on whether ROTC should be allowed back on campus.

"Racist!" some students yelled at Anthony Maschek, a Columbia freshman and former Army staff sergeant awarded the Purple Heart after being shot 11 times in a firefight in northern Iraq in February 2008. Others hissed and booed the veteran.

Maschek, 28, had bravely stepped up to the mike Tuesday at the meeting to issue an impassioned challenge to fellow students on their perceptions of the military.

"It doesn't matter how you feel about the war. It doesn't matter how you feel about fighting," said Maschek. "There are bad men out there plotting to kill you."

Several students laughed and jeered the Idaho native, a 10th Mountain Division infantryman who spent two years at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington recovering from grievous wounds.

Maschek, who is studying economics, miraculously survived the insurgent attack in Kirkuk. In the hail of gunfire, he broke both legs and suffered wounds to his abdomen, arm and chest.

He enrolled last August at the Ivy League school, where an increasingly ugly battle is unfolding over the 42-year military ban there.

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I don't care what your politics are. This kind of thing makes me sick. I wonder how many of those well-to-do spoiled brats in the audience have ever given a single moment of their precious time to public service of ANY kind?

This man wasn't a recruiter, he was simply trying to clarify what the media typically goes out of their way to distort about military service.

I'm a vet, and a moderate. I've also been very much opposed to what our role in the middle east has been over the past decade, but to mock a serviceman in such a fashion is outrageous. Wasn't this the same university that recently welcomed the president of Iran to be a guest speaker? A man internationally recognized as being hell bent on the complete distructon of the west? I don't recall him being heckled. Shameful.

Just my opinion

[Hal-9000]

At times...vets must wonder if it was worth it?

I've read so many stories (from a variety of wars) where the person gets into a situation few of us could imagine..and gets through it somehow....only to return home and be treated like that.

Hey...I think wars are a ridiculous way to solve world matters and rail at the waste of life.But until someone figures a better way to protect us and our way of life...all of our daily privileges we take for granted...I would thank each vet in person given the chance.

Those students should be ashamed of themselves.Whats the most dangerous thing they're going to do today? Cross an intersection?

[Teh One Who Knocks]

I saw this on the news yesterday


These idiot kids should be immediately sent to the Middle East so they can see what this courageous solider had to face on a daily basis. I fucking HATE people that don't show the due respect a soldier has earned by putting their lives on the line so we can live some semblance of a normal life.

[Hal-9000]

It's too bad that people fighting don't all take about a year off.Every conflict we back out of for 365 days.


And then the naysayers can compare what their world is like, versus a year ago.

I bet a lot would change.....

[Teh One Who Knocks]

It really is disgusting to me that these rich assholes have no idea how many people have lost their lives just to give them the right to be assholes

[Godfather]

What a bunch of jackasses. Too bad there isn't a draft...

I hope people recognize this doesn't represent my generation, nor does it represent college kids. (Most probably do, this has been going on since Vietnam) Just like everything in life, a few bad apples spoil it for the rest of us

I don't know the make-up of Columbia University, who goes there, but I can't think of anyone my age who wouldn't be equally appalled by this I know my friends and we all know someone in the military. They're people we all support and thank. I have tremendous respect for all troops of any NATO nation.

It's hard to imagine anyone heckling those who have served

This is just totally disgusting