{"id":73593,"date":"2017-07-25T09:24:05","date_gmt":"2017-07-25T13:24:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=73593"},"modified":"2017-07-25T09:24:05","modified_gmt":"2017-07-25T13:24:05","slug":"howard-banks-iwo-jima-vet-attacked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=73593","title":{"rendered":"Howard Banks, Iwo Jima vet attacked"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><a href=\"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?attachment_id=73594\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-73594\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Howard-Banks.jpg?resize=262%2C272\" alt=\"\" width=\"262\" height=\"272\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-73594\" \/><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fox8live.com\/story\/35951631\/veteran-92-attacked-while-protecting-his-flags\">KTVT<\/a>, Howard Banks, a 92-year-old veteran who was blinded at the battle for Iwo Jima was assaulted when he tried to prevent criminals from defacing his flag at his home in Kaufman, Texas.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cI walked out, hanging onto the railing, and stepped down. That must\u2019ve startled them,\u201d Banks said.<\/p>\n<p>Banks said the first time this happened, about a year ago, someone shredded his American flag and ripped his Marine flag. He was determined not to let that happen again.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey could see me. I couldn\u2019t see them. I turned and looked in the other direction, and about then &#8211; wham! One of them knocked me down,\u201d Banks said.<\/p>\n<p>Whoever did it took off. Neighbors rushed in to help Banks up. His knee was left a little twisted, he said, and he suffered bumps and bruises.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Some Marines at Honor Flight Austin heard about the incident and went to visit with him according to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/news\/2017\/jul\/24\/howard-banks-wwii-vet-surprised-with-honor-flight-\/\">Washington Times<\/a>;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>On Sunday, he was paid a visit by fellow Marine veterans from Honor Flight Austin, who offered him a free trip to Washington, D.C. to see the National World War II Memorial.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou know, first, you start messing with the American flag, I get real hot under the collar. And then, when I found out that they yanked the Marine Corps flag down, that made my bottom spicy,\u201d Michael Jernigan, a Marine corporal with the Blinded American Veterans Foundation, told Fox.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis guy is living history. He\u2019s a national treasure. People should be lined up on his porch to talk to him, not ripping his flags down,\u201d added Honor Flight Austin Director Kory Ryan.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to KTVT, Howard Banks, a 92-year-old veteran who was blinded at the battle for Iwo Jima was assaulted when he tried to prevent criminals from defacing his flag at his home in Kaufman, Texas. \u201cI walked out, hanging onto the railing, and stepped down. That must\u2019ve startled them,\u201d Banks said. Banks said the first [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":73594,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[217],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-we-remember"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Howard-Banks.jpg?fit=262%2C272&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4ozh1-j8Z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/73594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}