‘Gestapo Tactics’ Meet Seniors at Yellowstone
By Fox News
A Massachusetts woman says she and fellow tour-group members were locked under armed guard inside a Yellowstone National Park hotel during a visit to the park at the start of the government slimdown.
Pat Vaillancourt told the Newburyport News newspaper the incident unfolded Oct. 1 when they were already inside the park and a ranger would not let them off the tour bus to photograph roaming bison.
The group — roughly 40 senior citizens from around the world — was allowed to return to the Old Faithful Inn to spend a second night at the hotel, but some with limited English skills thought they were under arrest, she said.
Vaillancourt told the newspaper the two-and-a-half hour ride leaving Yellowstone wasn’t much better because tour members couldn’t make a scheduled comfort stop at a dude ranch because the owner was told he would have his license revoked for accommodating the group.
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By John Macone – Newburyport Daily News
Pat Vaillancourt was one of thousands of people who found themselves in a national park as the federal government shutdown went into effect on Oct. 1. For many hours her tour group, which included senior citizen visitors from Japan, Australia, Canada and the United States, were locked in a Yellowstone National Park hotel under armed guard….
“We’ve become a country of fear, guns and control,” said Vaillancourt, who grew up in Lawrence. “It was like they brought out the armed forces. Nobody was saying, ‘we’re sorry,’ it was all like — ” as she clenched her fist and banged it against her forearm….
[After park rangers prevented the group from stopping to take pictures of bison], the seniors quickly filed back onboard and the bus went to the Old Faithful Inn, the park’s premier lodge located adjacent to the park’s most famous site, Old Faithful geyser. That was as close as they could get to the famous site — barricades were erected around Old Faithful, and the seniors were locked inside the hotel, where armed rangers stayed at the door…
The bus trip made headlines in [the town of] Livingston [near the park entrance], where the local newspaper Livingston Enterprise interviewed the tour guide, Gordon Hodgson, who accused the park service of “Gestapo tactics.” He added, “The national parks belong to the people…This isn’t right…”
“My father took a lot of crap from the Japanese,” [as a prisoner of war Vaillancourt] recalled, her eyes welling with tears. “Every day they made him bow to the Japanese flag. But he stood up to them. “He always said to stand up for what you believe in, and don’t let them push you around,” she said, adding she was sad to see “fear, guns and control” turned on citizens in her own country.
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