trump's america: Father of fallen soldier says plane passengers booed family

[spanone]

Last edited Sun Nov 20, 2016, 12:34 PM - Edit history (1)

STOCKTON, Calif. (AP) — The father of a California soldier recently killed in Afghanistan says he felt disrespected and hurt by passengers who booed him and his family when they were on a flight to meet his son's remains.

Stewart Perry, his wife and daughter were on an American Airlines flight Monday from Sacramento to Philadelphia with a transfer in Phoenix to receive the remains of his son, Sgt. John Perry, of Stockton, when the flight was delayed, the Stockton Record (http://bit.ly/2fFOIRc) reported Saturday.

Perry, an ex-Marine who lives in Stockton, said the flight to Phoenix was 45 minutes late and the crew, fearing the Gold Star family could miss their connecting flight, made an announcement for passengers to remain seated to let a "special military family" deplane first.

Perry said several passengers in first class booed, complaining that it was "baloney" and that they paid first-class fares. He said he doesn't know if the passengers from Sacramento knew there was a Gold Star family on board or whether people sitting in the coach section complained.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/gold-star-family-slain-california-soldier-booed-flight-022057689.html

[LAS14]

1. Was someone in the party dressed as a muslim?

Just curious. Can't imagine how anyone would target Mr. Perry by his looks.

This is just appalling. We not only need someone to rally around who has good progressive credentials, we need someone who is good in the old fashioned sense of the word. (And I don't mean anti-abortion or climate change denying. Quite the opposite, of course.)

[TreasonousBastard]

2. Read the article-- piece of shit first class passengers upset that he...

was allowed to get off first to make his connection.

[COLGATE4]

3. Bunch of entitled pricks

[athena]

5. We're living in the new Gilded Age.

We've allowed this to happen. We've become a country where wealth is considered the only indicator of worth. When the top hedge fund manager earns more in fifteen minutes than the average physician or teacher or professor does in a year, you can no longer pretend to be a country that values anything other than wealth.

Reference:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ceos-vs-hedge-fund-managers-144938007.html

According to this article, the two top hedge fund managers each made $1.7 billion in 2015. If you assume a 40-hour work week and 52 weeks of work a year (i.e., no vacations), that's $817,308 an hour. Yes, you read that correctly: almost a million dollars an hour. I'm sure these people take vacations, though. And no one really works more than 40 hours a week except for brief spurts that are difficult to maintain in the long run. So this is, if anything, a conservative calculation.

Even if we assumed that these people are so brilliant that they can be considered to be working 24 hours each day, including in their sleep, they would still be making $193,931 an hour. That's more than the average teacher, professor, or physician makes in a year.

[DURHAM D]

4. I don't believe this story. nt

[uponit7771]

6. 1, something on the face of it is fucked up... humans usually aren't assholes for no reason

[DURHAM D]

9. The passengers were not told they were a

Gold Star Family.

I think the family is pushing this as a way to deal with their grief. What is next - a GoFundMe page?

[HipChick]

7. I believe it...I get upgrades all the time to first class

those guys can be real pricks..

[DURHAM D]

8. Just for starters - the passengers were not told

they were a gold star family.

[HipChick]

10. Why would they? Just being told they were miltary would be enough..

[DURHAM D]

12. Why?

I have family members who are career military and they (and their children) are total jerks. They think they are entitled to everything. They would stomp on granny if she gets in the way of their privilege. They are also all Republicans and refer to anyone who is a Democrat or a civilian as one of the "others".

[malaise]

11. They are shameless

[petronius]

13. The story seems carefully spun, and a lot of the criticism of the passengers seems

to be based on facts that were not in evidence at the time (plus a dollop of disdain for the presumed plutocrats in first class).

As described, it appears that the pilot's announcement basically boiled down to: let this family go first because they're military. As I posted in another thread, I would have ignored it...

[TeamPooka]

14. Entitled rich pricks in 1st class with no class. Fuck them.