On Saturday, March 22 I was in Prague, Czech Republic standing on the historic Charles Bridge admiring the absolutely amazing beauty of this nearly 2000 year old city. All of a sudden, I hear a commotion coming from the otherside of the bridge. I look down and the police are clearing the bridge to make way for about 50 - 100 anti-American, anti-war protesters to make their way across.

I stand to the side with my 20-year-old brother (who is a sophomore at Georgia Southern) who is as pissed off about what is happening as I am. I then hear another American accent behind me. I turn to find 4 college students from Nebraska behind me. One of the guys was saying that he wished he had a big American flag with him. I also overheard one of them ask if anyone knew what they were saying. I spoke up translated what they were yelling in German about America: "No War! No Violence! Stop George Bush!"

After a quick lesson on how to say, "I'm proud to be an American" in German, the 6 of us proceed to yell "Disarm Saddam!" and "Proud to be an American!" as the group marched by with their anti-Bush signs and their communist flags (I kid you not, there were at least 6 old Soviet flags being carried by the protesters). They looked at us like we were nuts but kept on walking. Two of them did break off from the group and headed directly towards us. We kind of prepared ourselves for a fight, (we had 4 young American men and 2 young women. We could have taken all 100 of them!) but they walked by us. We were a humble, yet vocal pro-American rally on foreign soil.

The thing that makes me proudest is my friend LTJG Jim Hoeft (former Chairman of the College Republicans at Old Dominion University in Virginia) who is stationed on the USS Ponce and is busing sweeping for mines in the Persain Gulf and firing some missiles at targets in Iraq wrote me back and said:

"Sorry, Jason, I have been super busy this week. I have been meaning to reply. I think what you did is great! We need the support here and abroad. What we're doing is just and right. We need to be proud and loud about saying so!

Keep up that freedom to speak! You make me proud about doing what I do!

James"

It was something I gave no thought to at the time. I figured I could be arrested, it could end up becoming violent and I might get hurt but none of that is important when it comes to standing up for your country. But if I can go ahead and do this spur of the moment in a foreign capitol, maybe someone out there won't be afriad to do it when they encounter protesters on the the streets of Atlanta or Washington or whereever.

Jason Shepherd
4th Vice-Chair East
Georgia Republican Party

PV Note: Dang! Even in Prague, GOP activists are always willing to take the fight to the enemy. Way to go, Jason!