The vets tried to reason with the Park Police to let the elderly vets through. The younger vets manage to talk them past the barricades, saying the elderly vets might not have the chance to get there again. A Vietnam vet helping them, Allen Bailey, offered to be arrested in their place, if someone needed to be arrested.
The vets then have the class to thank the NPS for letting them up, and sing “God Bless America”.
Other vets from the Big Sky Honor Flight of Montana were denied, including several vets in their upper 80s. It is not clear if they were able to get up the steps yesterday after the barriers were removed by the people.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Two Montana World War II veterans on Sunday defied a temporary steel barrier that closed the Lincoln Memorial to the general public. The pair climbed to the top to see the marble statue.
“I was privileged to walk up there,” said the defiant A.L. Frederick, 90, of Billings. “I was defending America – again. I see my freedoms being nibbled away.“
Frederick’s father met Abraham Lincoln in 1862 and sat on Lincoln’s lap while he was campaigning. He named his son after the slain president, so visiting the namesake Memorial held special meaning.
It was against the backdrop of the first federal government shutdown in 17 years that Frederick and William Cernohlavek, 90, of Billings, climbed the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to wild cheers and applause from hundreds of onlookers.
The pair of veterans, who were among three vets aboard the seventh tour of Big Sky Honor Flight of Montana, was assisted up the steps by veterans of the Vietnam War and Desert Storm.