WWII Vets Will Not Be Stopped By Government Shutdown

Earlier today, a group of World War Two veterans gave a symbolic F.U. to the congressional gridlock. In the midst of a partial government shutdown that closed federal offices, National Parks and Memorials, hundreds of our 'Greatest Generation' stormed the gates of the World War Two Memorial like it was a Nazi controlled stronghold.

The Mississippi vets were on a previously scheduled trip organized by Honor Flight, a group associated with Freedom Flight, that provides trips for war veterans to the Washington, DC memorials that recognize the war they were in.

Today, when the group of vets arrived to find the Reflecting Pool and WW2 Memorial outlined with yellow police tape and metal barricades, the vets made the bold move to cut the tape, and remove the barricades. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) distracted Park Police as 80 year-old war survivors and wheelchair-bound vets began the incursion, And despite what Michelle Bachmann would have you believe from her Twitter posts of pictures with another group of Iowa vets, she arrived AFTER the vets had already broken through the barricades.

Leo Shane III was covering the event for military magazine Stars and Stripes and provided a moment by moment account via twitter;