When Clinton was prez, don't remember exactly what year it was, we received notice he would be arriving and speaking at Bergstrom Air Force Base, in Austin TX where I was working at the time. Not a fan of Clinton, I still thought it would be cool to get to see and hear an actual sitting president, if only for historical reasons. Never seen one for real. So, near the big day, secret service was all over the place setting up vantage points, laying out cables for communications, looking at escape routes, just generally preparing for the event. They made a hell of a mess of the place too, throwing down & leaving on the ground fast food trash etc. No regard at all for anybody. Anyhow, it turned out the Prez was gonna actually be right there in the area where I work. We were a reserve unit co-located on an active duty base and they had picked our little piece of the base to do the prez stuff. Media came pouring in and setting up their gear and we noticed, nobody else. Other than the local media, no other spectators. Looked like a decision was made not to allow the public in. OK, probably too much for the SS to control, besides, plenty of people assigned to the base who would be there. NOT. It turned out that even though Clinton was there to talk about us, the people who were being affected by the BRAC (base closures) not only were we not going to be allowed to attend the prez appearance on an installation supported by taxpayers where we worked preparing to defend our country, we were rounded up and herded like cattle all into one building totally out of the line of sight of the president, and warned by secret service not to poke our heads out the door to catch a glimpse of "the man". We were told it would be most unpleasant for anyone who was seen sneaking a peek at President Clinton! What kind of crap was that?
Talk about being insulted, there were a few people who had voted for him
who would have retracted their votes that day if possible. Basically, we decided that they probably did this to head off the possiblility that some disgruntled employee who was about to lose his job might come unhinged and disrupt the Prez's appearance in front of the media. That's all we could think of. It turned out that other than the media, the only people people who attended the function were the local mayor and a very few local dignitaries and a congressman. Also, a group of folks that apparently were intended to give tv viewers and media the impression that they were there spontaneously, although they were brought in on a bus, apparently hand-picked and pre-approved by someone. Bottom line is that we loyal, military/civil service employees of the U.S. Government were treated badly and denied the rare chance to view our elected official when he was right there in our presence. We felt like we'd been dumped on, and it was a real eye opener as to how much the common man really matters to people in power. The whole even was staged for the media (shocker) and there was never any chance for ordinary folks to see "their" president. Anytime I see the (any) president in public on TV, I assume it's staged and meaningless.
When I saw it on the news later that evening, it was portrayed as the prez came to visit and reassure the dedicated men & women of the 924th Fighter Wing at BAFB that he really was behind us and "felt our pain" LOL!!!
