Rallying Behind The Military and The Police
Thompson enlisted in the United States Air Force after his high school graduation. He served in the intelligence unit during the Korean War until a football injury resulted in his discharge in 1952 and disqualified him from pilot training. Thompson was a strong proponent of the American troops who were assigned to block the expansion of communism in the Vietnam War. He traveled to South Vietnam and went into the combat areas. He returned to Macon with numerous hand-delivered messages from the troops for their families. The sight of the American flag inspired staunch patriotic feeings in Thompson. "I always get a thrill when I see the flag go by or hear the Star-Spangled Banner, said Thompson, who contends that his maternal family is descended from Francis Scott Key. Thompson established the label "Flag City U. S. A." for Macon, where on Poplar Street are fifty-four flagpoles which fly the emblems of each state, the U.S. flag, and the standards of the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.
Thompson said that he felt compelled to protect the students of Mercer University, which he had briefly attended, from subversive speakers brought to the campus. He once vowed to arrest the antiwar activist and actress Jane Fonda were she to speak at Mercer.
He also rallied to the defense of U.S. Army Lieutenant William L. Calley, Jr., a fellow southerner who was convicted in the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War. Thompson even offered Calley employment when the officer was paroled.
As he had with the troops in Vietnam, Thompson declared himself a strong supporter of the police. He recorded "A Policeman's Prayer" in the style of John Wayne's patriotic film The Green Berets.
Read more about this topic: Ronnie Thompson (Georgia Politician)
Famous quotes containing the words military and/or police:
“Stately as a galleon, I sail across the floor,
Doing the military two-step, as in the days of yore.”
—Joyce Grenfell (1910–1979)
“There was never a man born so wise or good, but one or more companions came into the world with him, who delight in his faculty, and report it. I cannot see without awe, that no man thinks alone and no man acts alone, but the divine assessors who came up with him into life,—now under one disguise, now under another,—like a police in citizen’s clothes, walk with him, step for step, through all kingdoms of time.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)