A group of uniformed Marines from the nearby North Park Reserve Training Center at 3034 W. Foster, dressed in urban camouflage fatigues, were undergoing training exercises in a civilian city park under the hot sun, at noon on a beautiful July Sunday.
First time we've ever seen that.
Under the watchful guard of a Chicago Police Department SUV, about 2 score of the military personnel, from the 2nd Battalion 24th Marine regiment, were engaging in a basic boot camp exercise, running a 100 yard course while carrying a fellow Marine on their back.
This was taking place on a field customarily reserved for softball and more recently, soccer games.
In fact, the Marine exercise seemed to have displaced a regular Latino Sunday soccer game, where more than a hundred recent - probably mostly illegal - Latino aliens would gather, without a park permit. They almost always would set up a food tent and dispense cooked items to the assembled throng -- almost certainly without requisite Chicago food handling permits.
We don't know if this Marine exercise was arranged to thwart the apparently ever-growing assemblages of Latinos who have essentially been taking over River Park.
Or if it is, as Alex Jones contends on his InfoWars website -- a further attempt to acclimate American citizens to ongoing military presence in their communities.
Just last week in downstate Illinois, there was an unexplained and thoroughly unexpected major military show of force on a Livingston, Illinois school ground.
We don't know whether to be grateful that the Marine presence has, for one Sunday at least, thwarted the illegal alien takeover of the stately north side park -- or to be concerned over this as another instance of an attempt to inure free Americans to a growing martial government presence.
Or maybe the Marines were just, as the Chicago Park District advertising slogan suggests, "Coming on out to play."
How is this a problem? Would you prefer a training camp for Zetas or other Mexican cartels. Perhaps more Latin gang concerts like that recent mess at Montrose Beach? Being Chicago I personally welcome them in every park within city limits. Maybe the could of had artillery practice at Montrose Beach last weekend.
ReplyDeleteFair enough as far as some of your instincts. But do you really want to see military in civilian areas? Do you want a situation like Brazil where machine gun toting military personnel patrol the beaches? If that's what it comes to, there is no point in calling this America any more, and I'm not sure I'd want to stay. Besides, can you really be sure those military guns won't be pointed at you?
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