I'm not sure you realize just how strong -- and how common -- anti-military sentiment is in the Northwest, even outside of teachers and activists. I wouldn't be at all surpirsed to find that many of those kids parents, while not sounding quite that silly, at least laid the foundation for those opinions.

Back in 1991, for example, Seattle ended up not having a Gulf War victory parade when the city council insisted that no military hardware be included. Estimates are that for the parade in Portland, as many as 10% of the crowd were protesters, not supporters (vs more like 1000 to 1 in San Diego). The Blue Angels have also stopped performing there due to the widespread complaints they get from the community about "military jets" flying over the city. Seattle and Portland are hotbeds of opposition to military recruiters visiting public schools, and that's coming from parents, not only from activist teachers. The NW has long elected non-hawkish representatives, like Wayne Morse, Mark Hatfield, Frank Church, and Mike Mansfield. WA has been somewhat different due to the military bases and Boeing, but still lots of long running anti-military sentiment. In the late 1990s, SecDef Cohen gave a talk at Microsoft on, "Why America Still Needs a Defense Department" -- the sense being that professionals in Redmond didn't necessarily agree and needed to be pursuaded.

Even in as liberal a place as Massachusetts, it surprised me how many memorials there are to veterans, how many towns have parades for Veterans Day, Memorial Day, 4th of July, even Patriot's Day (Batttle of Lexington/Concord). There's a lot more patriotism in Boston than you might think. In the Pacific NW, though, it seems like a much weaker and more diffuse sentiment, especially the military angle.