So about last week...
I'd gotten a last minute call from the Cherokee Nation about a shoot they were doing in Washington, D.C. A Cherokee citizen, Dwight Birdwell, was being awarded the Medal of Honor for acts of heroism during the Vietnam war. He was one of four Vietnam veterans being honored at several events throughout the week and the Cherokee Nation was out to make a feature for their Osyio, Voices of the Cherokee People series.
We filmed quite a bit with Dwight Birdwell as well as a few of his Army buddies who were actually there that day in January 1968 when Birdwell helped drive back as many as 1,000 enemy troops during an assault on a Saigon base. Spending time with those veterans, hearing their stories, and seeing them find the names of their fallen friends on the Vietnam Memorial wall was incredible. As difficult, frustrating, and exhausting as this job can be at times, experiences like this past week in our nation's capitol help make it worthwhile.
Beyond getting to meet and hear the incredible stories of these actual heroes, the highlight for me was getting to visit the White House. This was the first time I'd gotten past the heavy metal gates and actually into the building. The Cherokee Nation producer/director was cleared as a guest for the event, but the sound recordist and I weren't supposed to have gotten in at all. We somehow got cleared for entry and were corralled in with the rest of the media in the White House Briefing Room and then escorted to the East Room for the event. As the Secret Service walked us through those historic hallways and into the largest room in the White House, I tried to absorb whatever I could while also pretending like I was supposed to be there. By all means the White House is one of the classiest places I've ever been and I was furiously trying to remember the building layout by way of all the time I'd spent watching The West Wing.
The East Room was packed with invited guests and the press was kept at the back of the room behind a rope line. Thank goodness my Oconor tripod legs extend as high as they do, otherwise I'd have been blocked out by all the other media who've been there before and thought to bring their own step ladders. I was able to wedge myself in-between a still photog from the New York Times and another agency I'd never heard of. Good Lord too you'd better believe I made sure that little red record light was on when it needed to be and that my image was as sharp as I could make it. None of this "double-clutch" nonsense that keeps people on my side of the camera awake at night.
Washington, D.C. is a wild place to be during the July 4th holiday. It was crawling with people and security was even tighter than normal. We had a good deal of downtime and I was able to go hunt down the rubber stamps I could find, wander around with my still cameras, and live that luxurious life of eating take out on top of washing machines at laundromats. Georgetown University is something else and I found out why random tourists were laying down to take awkward photos on a crazy steep staircase. I also stopped by Bridge Street Books to pick up a copy of Ready Player One and a book about debt over the last 5,000 years which I'm sure Saint Anne the Wife can't wait to hear me talk about.
I've done the whole National Mall thing before, but never made it to the other side of the U.S. Capitol and out to the Supreme Court building. Considering all the news lately I made it a point to visit the place where a lot of the sausage gets made by nine fancy lawyers who aren't voted into political office. The day I was there with just my stills cameras was pretty tame. There were a few pro-choice activists with signs just outside the newly installed barricades. The next day was July 4th and I was back out at the Supreme Court building with our sound recordist to film "Washington, D.C. b-roll" for the Cherokee Nation. We unintentionally wound up in the middle of a spat between a large group of abortion rights activists and a handful of pro-lifers looking for a fight.
A white, brown-haired, college-aged girl in a blue dress walked right up to the edge of the abortion rights activists and held up her "We Won't Stop at Roe" sign. In the time it took for the dude she was with to take a few photos, she quickly got mobbed by the other side, creating even more fodder for r/LeopardsAteMyFace. I didn't see any punches, but it got rowdy and I remember seeing her sign getting skewered by the tip of a small American flag just before someone ripped it in two.
Pretty quickly the nearby U.S. Capitol Police got involved and stood between the two groups who were still yelling at each other. Within minutes those Capitol Police grew by about a dozen more, and then another 2-3 dozen officers. It wasn't like they were siding with either of the groups, but it was obvious they weren't playing around.
Afterward I dug through Instagram and found the girl in the blue dress along with several other posts from the event. Her recollections aren't what I saw and she for sure leaned into being the victim online. It's not worth giving her more attention, but I'm sure you know how the internet works and can find her yourself and the conservative merch she's selling on her website. I'm always down for protests, but simply looking for a fight is something else altogether. No clue if the footage I shot of the spat will actually see the light of day considering I was there for something else entirely.