'Million Vet March' Descending on Nations Capitol Demanding Memorials Open
Those outraged about the closing of the nation's monuments and memorials will be joining veterans for this weekends "Million Vet March" demanding that the memorials be opened during the government shutdown.
The march will take place on Sunday October 13, 2013 and will start at 9:00 a.m. at the World War II Memorial.
According to the Million Vet March website, the organizers are not concerned about a person's political leanings so long as they felt outrage over the closures.
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"We do not care what political leanings you may be; be it liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent or whatever. The actions of the U.S. government this week with regard to barricading and shutting down the World War II Memorial to veterans, that may or may not be on their last trip to Washington DC, is a despicable act of cowardice," the website reads.
Other open air monuments, such as the Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, and the memorials for those who fought in the Vietnam and Korean wars, were also barricaded.
Despite the closer of the memorials there have been reports of tourists also ignoring some of those barricades to view the monuments. This reporter observed tourists slipping past the MLK Memorial barricades.
President Obama said he would not negotiate while the government is shutdown and the debt limit not raised, but would talk to anyone once the priorities of congress are addressed.
"I have said consistently that I'm always happy to talk to Republicans and Democrats about how we shape a budget that is investing in things like early childhood education, rebuilding our roads and bridges and putting people back to work, growing our economy, making sure that we have the research and development to stay at the cutting edge and that deals with some of our long-term debt issues. But we're not going to accomplish those things if one party to this conversation says that the only way that they come to the table is if they get 100 percent of what they want and if they don't, they threaten to burn down the house," Obama told NPR.
