Toledo Mayor Boots Marines

This info came in through email - definitely worth reading and reacting!!!

Friends,

We have another maverick Mayor that has asked Marines to leave. This time Toledo, Ohio.................let's start the email rolling......... Here's the Mayors email: mayor.toledo@toledo.oh.gov

What is it about elected officials that don't get it? They hold their positions as a result of the lives, blood, body parts, family sacrifices of our military members. Doesn't Mayor Finkbeiner understand that Toledo may one day have an Islamic terrorists target his city and may need Marine urban warfare trained Marines.....

Another disgusting display of dishonoring America, and our Marines.............

Harry Riley, COL, USA, Ret


Mayor kicks Marines out of Toledo


1-24th Marines were scheduled for weekend urban warfare training in downtown
Toledo, when Carty gave them the boot


href="http://www.nbc24.com/news/news_story.aspx?id=94192">http://www.nbc24.com/news/news_story.aspx?id=94192

href="http://www.nbc24.com/uploadedImages/wnwo/News/Stories/carty-finkbeiner-180.jpg"> class=pic alt="Carty 180"
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By href="http://www.nbc24.com/about/bio.aspx?id=253">Darsha Philips
class=story_date>Posted: Saturday, February 09, 2008 at 2:05 p.m.

TOLEDO, OH -- Mayor Carty Finkbeiner on Friday ordered some
200 members of Company A, 1st Battalion, 24th
Marines from Grand Rapids, Michigan, out of Toledo just before the
unit was suppose to start a weekend of urban warfare
training downtown.

The mayor’s spokesperson Brian Schwartz said, “the mayor
asked them to leave because they frighten people. He did not want them
practicing and drilling in a highly visible area."

Toledo police said they knew about the training and had approved the unit’s
use of the Madison Building and the Promenade Park area. The
training was scheduled to start Friday afternoon and last until
Sunday. Police said the unit’s presence would have a minimal impact
on the city. Police issued a press release earlier in the week
saying the marines would be wearing green camouflage uniforms, operate military
vehicles, carry rifles, perform foot patrols, and fire blank ammunitiion during
the exercise.

Schwartz said there was a breakdown in communication between police and the
Finkbeiner administration that led to the mayor’s action.

“The marines drilled here three times during the Ford administration and once
under the Finkbeiner administration. After the last visit, the mayor told
then police chief Jack Smith, that he did not want the marines back.
Smith failed to inform the current police administration of the mayor’s
feelings,” Schwartz said.

NBC24 spoke to Jack Smith who recalled that after the marines last
visit, he and the mayor had a heated exchange about the training.

“He told me he did not want them, as he put it, 'playing war in Toledo,'"
Smith recalled. "I told him, as a former marine, that if one young
marine’s life is saved because of training he or she received in Toledo, Ohio,
then it was worth the inconvenience.”

Smith said if the mayor objected, then he should have been the
one to convey those feelings to police. Smith took his run-in with the
mayor as an objection to that last visit, and not future training in
Toledo.

As a result, the Toledo police went ahead, granting approval to the
1-24th Marines to conduct the routine exercise. The police
notified members of the Finkbeiner administration, who were not aware that the
mayor objected to unit’s training in Toledo.

When the mayor found out, he sent a member of his staff to tell marines they
could not conduct urban operations in Toledo.

The unit was notified about 3:30 p.m. after an advance team arrived in
Toledo. Five buses carrying some 200 marines traveled four hours
from Grand Rapids, only to find out the training had been shot down.

The unit briefly stopped at a another 1-24th marine base in
Perrysburg Township, then returned back to Grand Rapids where training was
expected to be held this weekend.

A spokesperson for the marines said they were disappointed by the mayor’s
decision especially after the city had been so helpful in the
past.