Protesters To Attend Funeral of Chief Warrant Officer Kyle Jackson of Sarasota

Kyle Jackson died near Al Sukar, Iraq, on January 13, 2006 when his OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopter came under attack by enemy forces using small arms fire.
He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 10th Aviation Regiment, 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, New York
Twenty-eight-year-old Chief Warrant Officer Kyle Jackson died while flying a helicopter in Iraq. Kyle’s father, Gary, says Kyle loved helicopters even as a child. His dream of flying came true when he joined the US Army.

from our local paper, the Sarasota Herald Tribune about Kyle Jackson…………………

“Thank you,” for starters.
Kyle Jackson died on behalf of his country — all of us. It’s an act of extraordinary sacrifice that most Americans, so removed from battle, are never called on to make. Jackson and his family have thus given far more than their share. We owe them a debt of gratitude and remembrance for their immeasurable loss.
The death of Jackson, an Army helicopter pilot, represents more than a war casualty; he was also a son, father and husband — roles that go to the heart of society. His absence casts a giant shadow, but his children can take inspiration from the way he lived.
In their grief, we hope Jackson’s family can count on the community’s help — just as the community counted on his.

But it cannot be where a family can be left alone in their time of grief and pride as well in their son.
Because of people like what you will now read about.
Sarasota Herald Tribune
Anti-gay group to protest at soldier’s funeral
Westboro Baptist Church plans to picket, but Patriot Guard group says it’ll protect family.
By WILL ROTHSCHILD

SARASOTA — The Sunday funeral service for a Sarasota soldier killed in Iraq could be turned into a spectacle of screaming protesters from an anti-gay group and the roaring Harley-Davidsons of a nationwide veterans organization.
For the second time in a month, members of the Westboro Baptist Church, a Kansas-based group which claims the United States is being punished by God for being friendly to homosexuals, plan to protest in Southwest Florida. The group, whose Web site says the country should outlaw sodomy and impose the death penalty for offenders, protested the newly formed Gay Straight Alliance at Port Charlotte High School last month.
This time, Westboro is taking aim at the funeral of Army helicopter pilot Kyle Jackson, 28, who was killed Jan. 13 when his helicopter was shot down by insurgents near Mosul, Iraq.
Westboro claims to have held more than 22,000 anti-gay demonstrations since 1991. But in the past year it has tried to connect its anti-gay rhetoric to the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, holding protests at more than 20 soldier funerals across the country.
Shirley Phelps-Roper, the daughter of Westboro pastor Fred Phelps, said the group had already planned to be in Tampa this weekend for a protest of Gay Straight Alliance groups there.
“And then here came this opportunity to help the people of Sarasota connect the dots, and they certainly deserve that opportunity,” Phelps-Roper said. “We’re going to remind them that there is a God and a heaven and a hell and a day of choice.”
Phelps-Roper said America is “feeling the sword of God” because it is pro-gay. A disapproving God “has become America’s terrorist” and is sending soldiers home in body bags as proof, Phelps-Roper said.
Fred Phelps claims the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States were God’s punishment on a “gay-enabling” nation.
“From the beginning, Phelps’ group has been the single most vicious anti-gay group in America, bar none,” said Mark Potok, who directs hate group investigations for the Southern Poverty Law Center, a Montgomery, Ala.-based civil rights organization.
“But in recent years,” Potok added, “Phelps has spiraled downward into utter madness. He is a walking hate crime.”
The funeral protests have been roundly criticized by communities across the country. Some communities and states have gone so far as to consider drafting legislation to stop them.
Potok said the Southern Poverty Law erty Law Center is trying to determine if any such legislation could be crafted to pass constitutional muster.
Kyle Jackson’s father, Gary Jackson, said sheriff’s officials alerted him to the protest.
“I expected stuff like this,” Jackson said. “What it is, is they want to take advantage of the high media situation to make their statement.”
He said his son’s funeral will go on without a problem.
“Kyle is an American hero,” he said. “The bigger stir they make, the bigger the hero he becomes. It won’t hurt my feelings; we will deal with it. We have a great and caring community here and this is something that is in God’s hands.”
Westboro Baptist Church consists mostly of Phelps family members; only one other family in Topeka has joined the church.
Phelps has 13 children, but four are estranged from their father and have nothing to do with the church, according to Potok.
Phelps-Roper said about 10 church members plan to be at Jackson’s funeral, planned for 1 p.m. Sunday at Phillippi Estate Park, 5500 S. Tamiami Trail.
If they want their message heard, they’ll have to raise their voices above the din of perhaps hundreds of motorcycle engines.
The Patriot Guard is a nationwide coalition of veterans formed last year in direct response to Westboro’s picketing of soldier funerals.
Their goal is to shield the family and friends of the soldiers from seeing or hearing Westboro’s screaming, sign-waving protesters. The Patriot Guard tries to position its members between where the Westboro group demonstrates and the path of mourners.
“We’re not counterprotesters or protesters,” said Clayton Murphy, a Patriot Guard coordinator and a Coast Guard veteran who lives in Tampa. “We’re there for one objective only and that’s to protect the family.
“… We’ll fire up the engines and drown them out so other people don’t have to hear their hatred.”

From their totally sick website
It is a PDF file just to let you know……….I will do the best I can do put what it is on here in case you cannot open a pdf file.
Westboro Baptist Church
3701 SW 12″ St. Topeka, Ks. 66604 785-273-0325 www.godhatesfags.com
Friday, January 20,2006
AMENDED NEWS RELEASE
(Supplemental info: background, photos, audio sermons & hymns, and video footage — available free at:
mvv.godhatesfags.com, godhatesamerica.com, fredthemovie.com, and hatemongers.com).
Thank God for IEDs
(Improvised Explosive Devices)
God Himself Has Now Become America’s Terrorist, Killing Americans in Strange Lands for “Brokeback Mountain Fag Sins.
WBC to picket funeral of Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Kyle Jackson
– at 1 p.m., Sunday Jan. 22, at Phillipi Mansion,
5500 S. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota, Florida.
Killed in Iraq for America’s fag sins and bombing WBC in a terroristic effort to silence our anti-gay Gospel preaching by violent intimidation.
America bombed our church with an IED made by fag students at Washburu U. in Topeka. In his retaliatory
wrath, God is killing Americans with Muslim IEDs:
God Almighty killed Army CWO Jackson. He died in shame, not honor – for a fag nation cursed by God: Cast into Hell with his soldier pals.
They turned America Over to fags;
They’re coming home
In body bags.
They come night & day, steel-gray cargo planes, bringing IED dead. America became WBC’s terrorist. Now God Himself is America’s Terrorist.

Kyle plays with his daughter Keira

Kyle’s wife Betsy Jackson…………………

For three days after Army officials told Betsy Jackson her husband had been killed in an Army helicopter crash in Iraq, she didn’t get out of bed or greet visitors.
She was inconsolable because she had lost her soulmate.
Then she realized that her husband would be upset that her grief was preventing her from being a good mother to their 2-year-old daughter Keira.
“I have to be there and be strong for her,” Betsy Jackson said Tuesday evening, wrapped in a blanket on her mother’s couch. “It’s not going to be easy, but I’m going to do it for Kyle.”
Kyle Jackson was an intelligent man and good father who meticulously prepared for everything — even his death.
The pair met as teenagers. To get Betsy, then 15, to go out with him, Kyle Jackson made a heart-shaped pizza and arranged the toppings on it to make a face. It worked.
They dated through high school. The couple stood out: He had a green Mohawk and she had purple hair. Even back then Kyle knew he wanted to be a pilot.
They stopped dating, and he went into the Marine Corps. They got back together and married three years ago.
Kyle Jackson joined the Army mid-January 2002 to get flight training.
When he got orders to go to Iraq in October he simply told Betsy, “It’s my job, and that’s that.”
He wanted to go to Iraq to support his “brothers,” the close-knit group of 19 men who also piloted two-seat armed OH-58D Kiowa helicopters.
Betsy Jackson said her husband had great respect for Mitchell Carver, the co-pilot from North Carolina who also died in the crash. They were roommates for several weeks when they first got to Iraq.
Their helicopter crashed Friday after Iraqi insurgents shot at it, the Department of Defense said. Jackson and Carver were supporting a group of Iraqi police who were under fire, family said.
Betsy and Keira returned to Sarasota to live with Betsy’s mother while Jackson fought in Iraq.

And here is a video from the Tampa Bay News….VIDEO…..
Just look on the right side of the screen for VIDEO and click on it.
Here are comments from those who knew Kyle some from the video………….
Gary Jackson, Kyle’s Father:
“I’m so proud of him, it was a huge loss. He could have done so much for the country.”
Kyle took pride in being a husband and father of two girls. On Friday the 13th, it all came to an end. When his parents watched reports of a helicopter crash in Iraq on national television, they worried it was their son.
Gary Jackson, Kyle’s Father:
“She had been very anxious for an hour. I think she could feel it. I was cold during that time, I told somebody I felt like I was freezing to death.”
Four hours went by without a call. They thought they were ok, but then the phone rang with the devastating news.
Gary Jackson, Kyle’s Father:
“They were ambushed from several directions at the same time, they were set up. I think the whole thing was a set up.”
Kyle is described as fearless, yet funny.
Gary Jackson, Kyle’s Father:
“He had a sparkle in his eye and he was always trying to make everyone laugh.”
A hero until the end, doing what he loved most.
Gary Jackson, Kyle’s Father:
“I believed the angels came down and carried him away when it was his time.”
Kyle’s wife Betsy understands her husband’s sacrifice, but says he will be deeply missed.

Wild Thing’s comment………..
There has to be a special place in hell for people belonging to the Westboro Baptist Church and their leader Phelps.
The Patriot Guards are a wonderful group. I thank you for all your efforts.
They objective first is : Honor and Respect