American Flag Protester Confronted By Angry Veteran

A video depicting an enraged veteran who confronted an American flag protester at Dayton, Ohio’s, Wright State University quickly went viral on Friday, resulting in an explosion of outcries across social media.

ABC 22 reports that a crowd gathered around on April 24 at Wright State University, as an unidentified man walked on an American flag that lay across the grass on campus. Citing his freedom of the 1st Amendment, the flag protester held up a white sign that read,

“-With Eric Shappard and the preservation of 1st Amendment rights
-For all men and woman in service to this country
-For the accountability of media and other social institutions
-Justice, equity, tolerance, and diversity
-Upon the belief higher learning should provoke students to question social norms, mainstream values, and power structures
-The ‘American” spirit, is a revolutionary spirit
-On the American flag because there’s nothing more American than that!”

Numerous veterans and people with loved ones in the military attend Wright State University, located only minutes from Wright Patterson Air Force Base. As many students watched the protester in disbelief, tempers began to flare and obscenities were shouted.

One man, whose name is undisclosed but believed to be a veteran, confronted the man face to face. Although the sign-holding protester didn’t seem to look the veteran in the eye and appeared to be passive, he taunted that he would burn a flag soon.

The veteran, trying hard to not attack the protester, told him that it would be “over his dead body” before he allowed a flag to be burned, followed by a string of explicit language.

“You just try it, over my dead body!”

[Warning — Explicit Language]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWSE5O9qCNE

Other people at the school, including student and veteran Nick Cassel, agreed with the irate veteran, stating that although he agrees with freedom of speech, the protester didn’t go about it in the correct way.

“I agree with a lot of issues he had. I’m all about free-speech, I’m all about the right to assemble, I think that’s the most important thing we have and that’s the thing I thought for over there, but the way he was doing it was not the proper way to do it on a veteran campus right next to the Air Force Base.”

Campus police arrived to ensure safety, but no arrests were made. So far, there is no indication of the names of the two men arguing in the video.

Meanwhile, this isn’t the first time this month that veterans have felt disrespected by college students. Last week, several members of University of Florida’s Zeta Beta Tau fraternity were expelled after reportedly urinating on an American flag and screaming obscenities.