A Wisconsin veterans group canceled its Veterans Day festivities at an area school district this year because it felt muzzled by objections from school officials.
The biggest objection: That events honoring U.S. servicemen would include firearms.
“Now as the last few years have gone on, with the school shootings and everything, it’s getting harder to do our veterans programs like we want to,” vice president of the Patriotic Council, Kaye Olsen, told WEAU-TV.
Olsen said that school officials have grown increasingly wary of the idea of firearms near or around school grounds, adding that these concerns eventually came to a head this year.
“It’s really hard to tell the veterans they’re not allowed to bring those rifles in,” says Olsen. “Which, the only purpose is, to honor our flag and our country and to teach the kids.”
A school official said that they would like to help the veterans group, but that the safety of students come first.
“We like to honor the veterans; we bring them in on a regular basis,” Executive Director of Administration with the district Tim Libham said. “There are just some conditions that we have to adhere to and the shooting of guns, even with blanks, is something we don’t feel is appropriate given society, and the concerns that we have and that the community has, on school premises.”
