One thing the US Army post at Fort Riley has learned is that you surrender to the wishes of Michael “Mikey” Weinstein at your own peril.

Weinstein has long claimed that his primary tool was CNN and FoxNews — by simply threatening to get military commanders on the news, he could get them to bow to his wishes.

The tables have reversed, though. A quick decision to placate Weinstein at Fort Riley has been followed by weeks of unending negative press attention slamming their decision to do so.

By contrast, the US Navy ignored Weinstein. And no one even seems to have noticed.

At the beginning of June, the MRFF sent a dire sounding “demand letter” (PDF) to the Secretary of the Navy calling on Secretary Mabus to “immediately” remove a video that was posted to the Navy Facebook page. Their problem? It said “cross.”

The Memorial Day video shows members of the US Navy Ceremonial Guard walking in Arlington National Cemetery, as each reads a line of poetry. One of the lines is the entire issue. Watch the 1:30 video to see if you can figure out which one:

From the MRFF letter:

As the video depicts members of the Ceremonial Guard at Arlington National Cemetery, it states, “With each white cross there stands a reminder to us all of those who paid the ultimate price.”

It’s true that there are only a couple of white crosses at Arlington, as the headstones themselves are not cross-shaped. But the poem recalls the somewhat more iconic imagery of Normandy, which has thousands of white crosses (and Stars of David). It is not unusual that a poetic reference would be made to the more dramatic iconography — even if the Ceremonial Guard couldn’t travel there to film the short video.

Could the poem have said something other than crosses? Sure. Does using the word “cross”

only honor[] Christian veterans…while showing blatant disregard for the many service members of other religions…

as Weinstein claims? Hardly. Weinstein’s demand letter is little more than another notch in his perpetually-offended belt — except the US Navy hasn’t yet capitulated.

Nearly two weeks later, there’s been no “23-hour victory dance” from Weinstein, nor any statement whatsoever from the Navy. The video remains online, on the Navy’s official Facebook page (“In case you missed it…“) and on YouTube — as well as the Navy’s proud claim they produced the video themselves.

And, as noted, this isn’t national news. The Navy isn’t being hammered in the press for not surrendering to Mikey Weinstein, despite his pattern of threatening commanders with precisely that outcome.

Fort Riley almost certainly wishes they could get a do-over and not so quickly bow to Mikey Weinstein. The Navy, for its part, seems to be doing just fine.

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