WATCH: Army Veteran Shawn Campbell Holds American Flag to Counter Pro-Palestinian March

CHICAGO, Illinois — Army veteran and local resident Shawn Campbell held an American flag high and walked backwards for nearly a mile on Monday, staging a one-man counter-protest against pro-Palestinian radicals outside the Democratic National Convention.

Campbell, who works in logistics during his Army service, told Breitbart News that he wanted to fly the American flag after he saw news coverage of pro-Palestinian radicals tearing down and burning the U.S. flag during a recent protest outside Union Station in Washington, D.C., last month, and hoisting the Palestinian flag in its place.

Campbell noted that the flag had also been desecrated during pro-Palestinian protests at the University of Chicago earlier this year.

One pro-Palestinian protester tried to argue with Campbell, then simply began berating him, and took video footage of herself complaining about him, saying he was opposed to freedom of speech. Another protester argued with him about the identity of the people who had burned the flags in Washington: “Maybe somebody was agitating.”

Campbell wore a T-shirt that simply said “vote,” and marched opposite the protest most of the way from Union Park to the security fence outside the United Center, where the Democratic convention is being held.

Asked whether he felt intimidated by the crowd — which swelled to several thousand, and which would later break through the security fence — Campbell said he was not afraid. “I will defend myself and stand my ground,” he added.

Earlier in the day, a group of several dozen Christian and Jewish staged a pro-Israel counter-demonstration at Union Park, before the pro-Palestinian march began. Pro-Palestinian activists tried and failed to block them from passing.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.