Amidst a controversial trend of kneeling during the national anthem at NFL games, a WWII veteran also took a knee in support of the anthem protests. 97-year-old John Middlemas was the subject of a viral photo when his grandson photographed him taking a knee in his own version of the national anthem protests.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">My grandpa is a 97 year-old WWII vet & Missouri farmer who wanted to join w/ those who <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TakeaKnee?src=hash">#TakeaKnee</a>: "those kids have every right to protest." <a href="https://t.co/LurCj7SLUB">pic.twitter.com/LurCj7SLUB</a></p>— Brennan Gilmore (@brennanmgilmore) <a href="https://twitter.com/brennanmgilmore/status/911960316220764160">September 24, 2017</a></blockquote>
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Middlemas' grandson, Brennan Gilmore, posted the image to twitter with the hashtag #TakeaKnee. The photo was posted Sunday at the same time NFL teams grabbed the nation's attention by taking a knee during the national anthem in the middle of stadium. Middlemas is kneeling in his yard with a WWII veteran's hat. Gilmore captioned the tweet, "My grandpa is a 97 year-old WWII vet & Missouri farmer who wanted to join w/ those who #TakeaKnee: `those kids have every right to protest."
The photo has garnered over 300,000 likes and 123,000 retweets on Twitter. The veteran is a farmer from Willard, Missouri and he told Springfield News-Leader he wanted to show "that you have to love everybody." Middlemas went on to say, "We don’t kill people. We want to make people live."
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Source: http://fox2now.com/2017/09/25/wwii-vet-97-takes-a-knee-in-support-of-anthem-protests/
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