WASHINGTON — This Memorial Day weekend, the nation's civilians are reporting record levels of anxiety, fearful that any misstep could ignite a wave of veteran outrage, according to a recent Gallup Poll.
Janice Sutton, 34, has personally experienced this on two occasions. In 2012, she posted “Happy Memorial Day!" on her Facebook wall. Within 24 hours, her status received over 10,000 comments, including several brutally explicit death threats from those who previously offered their lives to defend her right to free speech.
Then last November, Sutton posted “Thankful for all the soldiers who protected my freedom this Veterans Day!” as her status. She again received hundreds of angry comments from strangers berating her use of the word “soldiers,” instead of “servicemembers.”
“It was my fault, really,” says Sutton, who had to move her family to stop receiving hate mail from APO addresses. “I should have been more sensitive to their culture.”
