Don't Let Them Get To You

In September of this year, a couple I used to work with at our Century 21 Sundance Beachside office lost their son-in-law in the Iraqi war.


They had just given up their quite successful Real Estate careers here in FL and moved to GA to be with their daughter and granddaughter while their son-in-law served his third tour of duty in Iraq at the beginning of this year.

I remember how proud they were to call this young man son-in-law. I know how much their daughter loved her husband and how much his little girl loved her daddy. When all of us at Century 21 Sundance learned of this loss, we too felt like their son-in-law was our son-in-law. We grieved with them, we spoke on the phone with them, we did everything we could to comfort them long distance.


I learned that the Patriot Guard Riders were invited to be at both this soldiers memorial service in GA and funeral at Arlington National Cemetery and my heart cried harder. What do Real Estate Agents who are retired Navy have to do with bikers they have never met and why would they invite them to their son-in-laws services?


An associate of mine from Active Rain, Monika McGillicuddy found out why when she actually had the misfortune of seeing "hate" for herself when a small foul group of people came to her town to picket the funeral of a young man who died in the war. Monika had no idea what was going on, she just knew it was pure hate and you can read her version of the meeting here... HATE. The minute I saw the photo, I knew who she had come across. Monika ran into same people my friends from work thought may come to their son-in-laws services to picket his funeral...


In 2005 I heard about this man that calls himself a Reverend began to picket funerals of soldiers who died in the war. He would carry signs of hate and scream at the mourners foul words of evil. The man reminded me of the evil man "Reverend Kane" in Poltergeist 2 the one that tried to get the little blond girl to go with him, remember that him? They don't look like twins, but they both have that coldness in their eyes. I got chills up my spine when I saw him.


A small band of bikers heard about this person and began to also show up at the funerals of soldiers to shield the families of the fallen hero's from this man and his followers. They would park their bikes near where the protesters were spewing their hate, reving their engines so that no one could hear this man and his followers.


The small band of bikers is now known as the Patriot Guard Riders and is over 100,000 strong.


This so called Reverend is from Kansas, his "church" is "Westboro Baptist Church" out of Topeka. However, no Baptist organization will recognize his church as a fellowship believing in the bible. The church members are mostly family of this hateful man who is a disbarred attorney. He has 13 kids, 11 are lawyers working for his family law firm. Two sons work for the the Kansas Dept. of Corrections and one for the Shawnee County Dept. of Corrections. (According to NNDB.com)


The members of this so called church are not allowed to marry what they call "outsiders" and since many of the members of the church of all members of this mans family, well I'll leave you with that thought..


Unless you have been living under a rock the past week, you know this group was ordered to pay 11 million dollars to the father of a soldier whose funeral they disrupted. The daughter and one of their spokespeople were elated, yes, elated... You see this brought them more press. This is what they want. I guess I'm giving it to them too huh? Well I have a reason for that...


If ever you have the misfortune to come across this people, don't give in to their hate, do what the man in Monika's story did, turn your back on them and ignore them.

Do Not Let Them Get To You.

This is what they want.

If you turn your back on them, and don't show them your anger, you win, they lose. They want confrontation and fights. This is what they live for, don't give it to them. They want to become martyrs. Don't give it to them. The Patriot Guard Riders don't let it show if the words of hate get to them. They don't try to fight back with words or fists. The PGR will ignore these ugly people as if they weren't even there.

If you want to become a member of the Patriot Guard Riders, just sign up, you don't need to ride to be a member. There are no dues to pay, no sign up fees. Just go to their website Patriotguard.org and click on the "Click Here To Join" button, or just click the link I put in.

If you ever need the assistance of the Patriot Guard Riders, all you have to do is ask. They will be there for you whenever you need them.