You know who have no sense of humor? National Guardsmen. They were not happy at all about having their pictures taken while they were hanging out in the sun at their official staging area: the Denver campus of Johnson & Wales University.
Is it a little weird that a college campus—generally accepted to be a hotbed of liberalism, anti-establishment protest and dudes in hippie sandals playing hacky-sack—should be the chosen camp site for a rather sizable army of Colorado National Guardsmen? Yeah, it is. But then, J&W -- which bills itself as a “career college” and offers degree programs in things like fashion merchandising, marketing, pastry arts and hotel management -- is not your average university, and I guess the faculty, president or whoever signed the final order figured that a bunch of future Marriott desk clerks and Fashion Bug window dressers weren’t going to put up much of a stink or march on the front lines or anything like that.
Good thing, too, because the Guardsmen are armed, have every entrance to the campus blocked off by camouflaged Humvees or hurricane fence, and didn’t even like it that I got close enough to snap a couple pictures.
Still, it’s good to know that if anything heavy goes down, the future line cooks and pastry chefs of America are well protected. -- Jason Sheehan
