The protest did not go off as planned. In February 2023, government recruiters came to the student union at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, stacking National Security Agency-branded plastic cups and splaying out pamphlets about Navy fringe benefits.
The activists had come to protest the expansion of Camp Grayling, already the largest National Guard training facility in the country. The opposition had arisen a year earlier, when the military had proposed leasing more than 150,000 acres of forest land managed by Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources, doubling the size of the training installation.
The National Guard, though, did not make an appearance at the University of Michigan career fair. The activists proceeded with their plan anyway.
“Want blood on your hands?” read the flyers activists distributed on recruiting tables. “Sign up for a government job.” When the recruiters returned from lunch, two protesters rushed in, dousing the NSA recruiting table and two Navy personnel with fake blood sprayed out of a ketchup container. (The NSA did not respond to a request for comment.) The “Stop Camp Grayling” protesters were subdued, booked, and charged…..more