Former Marine's injury spurs vets to join Occupy movement

Former Marine's injury spurs vets to join Occupy movement

Spurred by an injury to one of their own, military veterans are mobilizing to increase their presence and profile in the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Wednesday on Wall Street, the New York City chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War and dozens of other uniformed veterans known as "Veterans of the 99%" are expected to mass near Wall Street, where Occupy began Sept. 17.

Although they've been participating in Occupy protests throughout the country, vets say their ranks have been swelling since last week, when former Marine and Iraq War vet Scott Olsen sustained a skull fracture when he was hit by a police projectile at an Occupy Oakland protest.

"We're getting calls from veterans across the country who are extremely angry and appalled that someone who served two tours in Iraq got injured as a well-behaved protester,'' says Kimball, 27. "It's rallying vets across the country. We're just seeing the beginning of it."

This could be the lightning strike that galvanizes the movement.

With an unemployment rate for ex-military at 20%, jobs shipped overseas, and dwindling benefits in spite of what they went through in Iraq and Afghanistan, these vets have a serious gripe on their hands.

But this is also significant - Elsewhere, Oakland, city officials are bracing for a possible shutdown of the Port of Oakland today by organizers for Occupy Oakland, which is planning to disrupt the nation's fifth-busiest shipping container port today.

A march against one of the ports where all those imports come flooding back into America from factories that flocked overseas for cheap labor - THAT will make some globalists take notice!

They should include all the shipping ports and the US-Mexico highways too - shut down them Mexican trucks since our spineless sell-outs in Congress wont. Lock up the Ports and keep that cheap Chinese junk sitting in cargo holds. Let Walmart restock it's shelves with American made goods for once.

We called it, Seemed like a logical response in my opinion, he didn't do it to himself, and anyone with anything powerful enough to inflict that sort of damage was either a) a rubber bullet, or b) a canister shot from a gun.

This has the potential to whirlwind, and its about time. And occupying that port is going to be awesome, that will let them take the hint.

Well I'm going to be there tomorrow bright and early, as I have been for the past few weeks at occupy oakland. It will definitely be quite interesting. The other marches we've gone on have gotten mildly wild, so I can only wonder what tomorrow's will bring.
When I was down there earlier today, everyone was spreading the word to all the passerby's. I'm sure it'll be big

I would still like to see an arial view of the crowd during a march. It's the only way to judge attendance. I've checked out Seattle 4 weeks now and one week was about 200 but nothing but a handful the last couple weeks.

And after checking around we've not had and OWS rally's in Federal Way, Lakewood, Tacoma, Bellevue ot Olympia. Nothing in Portland either? Guess we just aren't that cool.