Marines Face Foe at Home

The 1st Battalion, 24th Marines helped take the Japanese island of Iwo Jima in 1945, but when today’s members of that organization parked Japanese cars in the United Auto Workers Solidarity House lot in Detroit, the UAW told them to leave. The UAW even banned Marine reservists’ cars made in America if they sported a pro-President bush bumper sticker. After several days of bad publicity, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger, who is a former Marine reservist, reversed the decision on March 14. “I made the wrong call on the parking issue,” Gettelfinger stated. But his retraction came too late for the aggressive Marines. “The decision’s already been made that we’re not going to park there,” said Marine Lt. Col. Joe Rutledge of the nearby Marine Corps Reserve center. “We’ve already made other arrangements to park elsewhere.” The union had allowed the Marines to park without conditions for 10 years.