A torrent of hate pouring in have led the organizers to cancel Hailey Idaho's homecoming celebration for Sergeant Bowe Bergadahl.
Emails to Hailey call for city to cancel Bergdahl celebration
By Eric Gonzales
HAILEY, Idaho (KBOI) - Emails sent to Hailey City Hall asked the city not to celebrate Sergeant Bowe Bergadahl as a hero and called him a traitor and a deserter. A lot of the messages talked about remembering the soldiers they said died looking for Bergdahl while the rest of Hailey will celebrate.
One email reads, 'I've an idea....send an invitation to the families of the six honorable soldiers killed trying to find him on his 'walk a bout'.
Emails even attacked Bergdahl's father calling him a Muslim. Many emails talked about boycotting the town of Hailey, like this email: "According to Bergdahl's father, 'Hailey is just like Afghanistan.' Congratulations, you made my list of places to avoid in America."
The majority of the emails were from veterans. Some sympathized with the parents and asked the city to keep the celebration low key. While the mayor has asked people to hold their judgment, emails say that the Pentagon has judged him as a deserter.
And one of the many just said go for it.
"Don't let the nut jobs spoil your celebration, have it anyway."
Hailey businesses feeling Bergdahl backlash
BY ZACH KYLE
Organizers cancelled the event midday Wednesday.
Some of the angry callers are veterans, Heitzman said. One angry caller said he was a trucker saying he would make sure to stop in Hailey to dump off his trash, she said.
“They say we’re kind of a disgrace, or what a shame it is to have a celebration for a traitor,” Heitzman said. “They say they had planned on coming to the area to go fishing or camping, but now they won’t be coming to Idaho.”
Heitzman said that several hotels in the area received room cancellations from travelers upset by the Bergdahl situation. She also said city hall and the Hailey Police Department also received many angry calls.
The national criticism and media attention caught the town of about 8,000 residents off guard, Heitzman said.
“Maybe I’m naïve, but I don’t think anybody anticipated this much of a blowback,” she said. “We thought it would be like (Olympic gold medalist and Hailey native) Kaitlyn Farrington coming back from the Olympics. We thought it was somebody coming home.”
Its a shame when the level of animosity the Fright Wing's Tar Obama Machine generates prompts a small town in rural Idaho to cancel a homecoming celebration for a native son who just spent 5 years of deprivation and torment in captivity.
Here's a news report from 2 days ago:
Hailey, Idaho Residents: '100 Percent Support' of Bergdahls
Maybe we should tie a yellow ribbon around a tree trunk (if one isn't there already) to show not all Americans are ready to disown this young soldier as one of our own.