Six Flags Apologizes for Gun Shirt Error

A former Marine who wasn’t allowed into an amusement park because he was wearing a shirt with a red, white and blue rifle pictured on it has been given an apology.

Mario Alejandro, who served four years in the U.S. Marine Corps, received a phone call from Six Flags Great Adventure President John Fitzgerald on Saturday apologizing, and Alejandro accepted the apology.

Alejandro, a father of three from Woodbridge, said he went to the park with his family on Aug. 9 wearing the shirt, a Father’s Day gift from a nonprofit that supports Marines. He said a security guard told him the shirt, which included the phrase “Keep calm and return fire,” was offensive and he had to change it or cover it if he wanted to go into the park, located in Jackson.

“I told them [that it’s] not offensive, that it’s a military shirt and that it means something,” Alejandro said. “But they said, ‘I don’t care. Get out of the park.’”

A spokeswoman for the park said it didn’t realize Alejandro’s shirt was related to a military charity.

This article appeared in print on page 14 of the August 20th, 2014 edition of Hamodia.