The Marine Corps veteran seen in videos shouting at New York City police officers during the ongoing “Occupy Wall Street” demonstration appeared Monday night on Countdown with Keith Olbermann to discuss the situation.

Sgt. Shamar Thomas, of the 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, confronted a group of police officers and gave them a stern lecture at the top of his voice about how they should not be hurting peaceful American protesters.

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“I’ve been to Iraq twice,” he told Olbermann. “I was in a riot in Rutba in 2004, where we had rocks thrown at us and after the rocks were thrown we didn’t go beating up people and arresting people. We treated them with a level of humility.”

Thomas also questioned why the police wore riot gear and used batons against peaceful protesters.

“When people are just shouting, ‘We are the 99 percent, come join us,’ these are not chants that incite violence,” he noted.

When asked what the protest meant to him, Thomas said: “This is our time in our generation to change the greed that is in America.”

Watch video, courtesy of Current TV, below: