I agree with Bugs. I’ve been riding the Blue Line on the DC Metro for about five years and have not seen any negative interations with the many uniformed military members who commute every day. I’m sure some lefty looney has given crap to somebody in uniform on the subway here, it’s a big town, but it would be an anomaly, not a feature of the Metro.
I also agree with Bugs that Washington, DC, oddly enough, is not a highly politically charged town in everyday dealings. I found the corporate environment in Dallas to be far more stridently politically correct than working in the government environment in DC. Perhaps part of that has to do with government workers tending to be older and more mature than the corporate work force, which tends to be younger and immature. Corporations like to hire young and cheap and lay them off when they get old and expensive. The government hangs on to its employees until they retire or drop dead. Washington is a town full of middle aged couch potatoes, not given to wild enthusiasms.
Bugs is quite right that most of the wild-eyed radicals come from outside DC. When the anti-war movement was alive and kicking, the big demonstrations would pull in communist cells from New York and New Jersey proudly flying banners labelling themselves as such.
That said, the abuse of military people in uniform is such a charged subject since Vietnam that we just won’t stand for it. And it does still happen. I’ve seen anti-war protestors curse wounded vets with my own eyes right here on the streets of DC right next to the Capitol. You can’t imagine the feral hate in these people until you’ve seen them shouting in a rage at the White House, flecks of spit flying out of red faces, like some medieval religious exorcism.
