10-18-2017, 10:25 PM
Buddy and I have season tickets - 3 club level seats. We served together in Desert Storm. The CK thing was bothering us but it was one stupid, ignorant spoiled brat. Then another joined, and another, and it just isn't something we can ignore anymore. We always tell the story of how we woke up in the desert in January of 1991 at 2am and listened to the win on shortwave armed forces radio. Anthem and flag are sacred to us and I know quite a few others who feel the same way. We haven't attended a home game since and haven't watched them on TV either. We were huge NFL fans and when we weren't at the Bengals games we were texting with each other and a few other veteran friends for the other Sunday, Monday and Thursday night games. We are done, we won't be renewing and we were talking earlier today about it - the bond is gone, the passion we felt has been replaced by a sense of betrayal. It's one of those things that if you haven't experienced what those symbols mean to people like us you just can't understand it. Too many have lost too much and that is the time we reflect and pay respect to those who paid the ultimate price. The older I get the more sentimental I get when I hear the anthem and I always start running through my mental list of those I served with who are no longer with us. And to take a knee or disrespect that 2 minutes is just not something we are not only willing to ignore, but to pay money to participate in. Just can't do it and I assure you there are a lot of us out here. The NFL will never get people like us back. Ironic that these people protest the police while surrounded and escorted on and off the field by police.
