USMC Staff Sgt. Jason Rogers , 28, was killed in action by an IED while saving a fellow Marine in Helmand Province, Afghanistan on April 7. Sgt. Rogers was assigned to the 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, out of Camp Lejeune, N.C. This was his fifth combat tour in Afghanistan. His fifth.

Sgt. Rogers was buried in Brandon, Mississippi last Saturday. Above is the view of Mississippi Highway Patrol Trooper Elmo Townsend as he escorted Sgt. Rogers from Airport Road and along U.S. 80 through a gauntlet of hundreds of local patriots wo turned out to honor his sacrifice.

The human vermin of the Phelps family, venomous traitors who style themselves the Westboro Baptist Church, who insult decent people from coast to coast by shouting vile slander at the funerals of heroes, threatened to protest this funeral as well. Yet, not a whiff of their stench fouled the air anywhere near the procession nor funeral. Therein lies the story.

According to a poster on The Oxford Square, a message board for Ole Miss, the Phelps made it to town, but got no further:

They did show up, a few showed up a couple of days early. A couple of days before, one of them ran his mouth at a Brandon gas station and got his ass waxed. Police were called and the beaten man could not give much of a description of who beat him. When they canvassed the station and spoke to the large crowd that had gathered around, no one seemed to remember anything about what had happened. Rankin County handled this thing perfectly. There were many things that were put into place that most will never know about and at great expense to the county. Most of the morons never made it out of their hotel parking lot. It seems that certain Rankin county pickup trucks were parked directly behind any car that had Kansas plates in the hotel parking lot and the drivers mysteriously disappeared until after the funeral was over. Police were called but their wrecker service was running behind and it was going to be a few hours before they could tow the trucks so the Kansas plated cars could get out. A few made it to the funeral but were ushered away to be questioned about a crime they might have possibly been involved in. Turns out, after a few hours of questioning, that they were not involved and they were allowed to go on about their business. Ranking deserves a hand in how they handled this situation.

Sometimes, when all else has fails, you need the good old boys to get things done. Hats off to the patriots of Rankin, Mississippi!

UPDATE: The Rumor Doctor at Stars & Stripes has researched this story and, sadly, found it unfounded. The Phelps family never showed up at all. It was a lovely dream, though. And just because it didn't happen doesn't mean it can't happen.