Wow...Marines scare people

1/24 was one of my old unit's (3/24) sister battalions. We also had a lot of personnel deployed with them last year, one of whom lost his life. The Marine world is a small one...we also have long memories. Here's a round of applause (the sarcastic kind) for the Mayor of Toledo as he tells the Marines to leave downtown:

A company of Marine Corps Reservists received a cold send-off from downtown Toledo yesterday by order of Mayor Carty Finkbeiner.

The 200 members of Company A, 1st Battalion, 24th Marines, based in Grand Rapids, Mich., planned to spend their weekend engaged in urban patrol exercises on the streets of downtown as well as inside the mostly vacant Madison Building, 607 Madison Ave.

Toledo police knew days in advance about their plans for a three-day exercise. Yet somehow the memo never made it to Mayor Finkbeiner, who ordered the Marines out yesterday afternoon just minutes before their buses were to arrive.

"The mayor asked them to leave because they frighten people," said Brian Schwartz, the mayor's spokesman.

"He did not want them practicing and drilling in a highly visible area."

Wow. So cancel expensive training the day of without telling those in charge. Awesome. And why? Because is frightens people. Nevermind the police manning the roadblocks, or the local media informing people. People are frightened by Marines. Um, well, I think he should specify that only certain people are frightened by Marines...and the general populace should be comforted by that. Oh, well.