Marines furious over police attack on "brother" at Occupy Oakland

A six-year veteran of the United States Marines has posted a powerful photo of himself on the Internet in which he shows his dissatisfaction with the police raid in Oakland, California that put a fellow vet in critical condition.

­A late-Tuesday crack-down on the Occupy Oakland encampment left Scott Olsen, a 24-year-old Marine that served two tours of Iraq, in the hospital in critical condition after a blunt object made contact with his head, fracturing his skull and leading to swelling of the brain. The projectile is believed to be a non-lethal canister fired by the local police as hundreds of cops swarmed on the Bay Area hub of the Occupy Wall Street movement to attempt to thwart protesters.

One marine, Jay C Gentile, posted a photograph of himself on the popular online site Reddit.com holding an image of his fallen fellow Marine in one hand and a sign in his other reading, “You did this to my brother.”

In the first 13 hours that the post, titled “How I feel, as a United States Marine, about what occurred in Oakland” has been on Reddit, it has garnered over 1,200 comments and has accumulated exponentially more views.

Since the post has gone viral online, the user has added to the site that he is located in South Jersey and has been so moved by response on the Web that he now says he plans to attend Occupy movements across America in the coming days.

“I’m very much for the movement and encourage everybody I know to get involved,” the author published as an addendum to the original posting.

“I see this young man and I picture the men and women that stood beside me during my time in, and the men and women that stand in those places today,” he adds. “I know what he went through to become a Marine, what he ate for breakfast most days and how long he was able to talk to his parents with his $10 phone card in a shack in Iraq. He is my brother and, unfortunately, I cannot put the reasoning into words.”

Following Tuesday’s assault on Olsen, Occupy Oakland protesters held a General Assembly on Wednesday and came to an overwhelming consensus to launch a general strike throughout the Bay Area city next week on November 2. Even after multiple raids by the police, thousands of demonstrators continue to wage protests, met with support from other Occupy Wall Street-offshoots worldwide.

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