By Travis Raymond
I served my country and its president for five years in the army, but had never laid eyes on the commander-in-chief in person. When I learned that President Obama would be coming to Cleveland State, I obtained a ticket to see him.
The line to hear the President speak stretched for more blocks than I could see, and I had an impending class that I was unwilling to miss. So after being told I couldn’t stand atop the parking garage at East 17th and Chester, I joined a small group of students and perhaps one professor on top of the central garage. I was there about two minutes when I saw secret service agents walking directly toward us. I pulled my driver’s license and student identification cards from my wallet. I knew what was coming.
After verifying my service record, one of the agents asked, “Are you feeling okay? Are you angry about anything?”
This article appears in Oct 10-16, 2012.
I can honestly see both sides to this. The guys are just doing their job, there are a lot of nuts in the world today. At least they were nice enough to joke around with you instead of being completely mean or something.
I’m now winding down my second campaign for The Man (POTUS, as the suits call him)…and one thing you do not want to do is to piss these guys off in any way, or you will have a problem a lot more serious than any dealings with law enforcement people. Even if you’re wearing campaign ID badges that allow you to get fairly close (like maybe twenty feet from the SS perimeter) to the President (ANY President), you don’t want to attract any unnecessary attention from them, so it’s best not to do anything out of the ordinary, maybe not even make eye contact. Let them do their dangerous jobs and let them play Clint Eastwood or Agent Shrink…it’s what they do so we don’t have to cry after another Dallas, know whadda mean? The high ground, it goes without saying, is theirs. You should not have been there.
Chuckles the Clown
Wish they would have said “you mad, bro?”