Nathan Phillips, the fake Viet Nam veteran, who served his time in California as a mechanic and went AWOL three times in his four-year hitch, tried to interrupt mass in a Catholic Church in Washington.
He was banging away on his war drum, but he was stopped by the security guard. Phillips was leading a group of 21 protesters, but the guard would not let them in and eventually, they just locked the doors to keep them out.
The guard was pretty shaken up by the incident and he hopes it never happens again.
“It was really upsetting,” said a security guard to CNA, “There were about twenty people trying to get in, we had to lock the doors and everything.”
“We had hundreds and hundreds of people from all over the country come here to celebrate life,” continued the security guard to CNA, “It’s a house of worship, a place of prayer where people come to celebrate. All this anger is so against what we are all about here.”
The security guard added that the “protest” attempting to enter the church during its Mass was “really the worst.”
Friday’s incident had not been the first time Phillips ended up in news headlines. In April 2015, Phillips claimed that students from Eastern Michigan University had hurled racial slurs at him as well as a beer can while shouting at him to “go back to the reservation,” according to Fox 2 Detroit.
Phillips has also claimed that he is a Vietnam veteran. On Tuesday, however, it was discovered that Phillips had never been deployed to Vietnam, causing the Washington Post to correct its story regarding Phillips’ military record.
The security guard at the basilica told CNA that he does not know the details of what had happened during Friday’s incident involving Phillips and the high school students, but he hopes he never sees another incident like the one he saw on Saturday when Phillips and others attempted to disrupt the Vigil Mass.