loading . . . As tear gas billowed around him on Friday, Curtis Evans found himself drawing on his time as a Marine.
“My Marine Corps training hit me. They’d gas us every year for fun, just for training, not just in boot camp, you got it later, too,” Evans told Task & Purpose over the weekend. “One of the things you learn from Marine Corps training is that it sets off all of your body’s alarms. You can’t breathe, you can’t see, it hurts, but it’s just the alarms. But boy, all of the nerves are screaming.”
Evans was taking part in protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids at a facility in Broadview, just outside of Chicago on Sept. 19. As federal agents fired tear gas canisters and pepper balls into the more than 100 people outside the building, Stacey Wescott with the Chicago Tribune snapped a photo of Evans. As people ran away from the gas, Evans stood there seemingly unbothered, holding an American flag high. The next day, Wescott’s photo was on the front page of the Chicago Tribune and had gone viral on social media, both on military channels and wider platforms. (On the unofficial Marine Corps subreddit, a photo of Evans with his large flag and a secondary, smaller flag tucked in his side pocket — should he ever lose control of his primary flag — was widely viewed and commented on.)
The man in the viral photo is a 65-year-old Marine Corps veteran who speaks with a methodical nature and a dry sense of humor. Curtis Evans, of Evanston, Illinois, said that as multiple tear gas grenades went off around him, he was soon shoved to the ground, but was unhurt. He had joined the anti-ICE protests, he said, in part due to his convictions and ideals. Evans told Task & Purpose he was “a patriot” and that patriotism is why he joined the Marines in 1980, a day after his 20th birthday.
“Our country is wonderful, our ideas are fantastic. I thought if I’m going to do anything, I’m going to go all of the way and join the Marine Corps,” Evans said. “It was outside of what people would expect. I wasn’t one of those guys you think, ‘Oh he’s going into the military.’ But I’m glad I did.”
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The Evanston native found himself stationed in Hawaii, working in communications intelligence. It was peacetime service — “I didn’t shoot anybody, nobody shot at me,” as he put it — but he still remembers it being tough.
“It’s the Marine Corps, you don’t have the best time in the world,” Evans said. “Anything that starts with Marine Corps boot camp, you have to be weary after it.”
He left active duty in the mid-1980s, leaving the Marines as an E-2 — “Like any Marine, I lost two stripes in the middle of that [service]. I think it’s only worthy of a Marine to do something like that.”
He went back to Illinois, working in water and sewer services for several years. He’s recently retired, and by his own account has been busy reading recently, poring over the writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Henry Thoreau. He speaks thoughtfully, weaving in memories of his service with anecdotes about Chesty Puller to things he’s recently read on the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
This past month, ICE and other federal law enforcement agencies launched Operation Midway Blitz, a sweeping series of immigration raids around the greater Chicago area, with Naval Station Great Lakes used as one base of operations. The president has repeatedly threatened to send the National Guard to Chicago as he has done in Washington, D.C., but has not yet. Protests have been regularly held outside an ICE building in Broadview, and on Friday, Evans went there, carrying a large American flag, to join demonstrators. More than 100 people gathered outside the main gates, including elected officials, congressional candidates, faith leaders, and people like Evans.
Federal agents then opened the gates and tried to drive a car out. Masked agents — footage from protests show several in full tactical gear on the ground and on the roof — began firing tear gas and pepper balls into the crowd of protesters. Several people, including a reverend, were hit in the face with pepper balls. As the scene got more violent and chaotic, and gas billowed up on the ground, Evans said the tear gas felt familiar, but “just really sucks.” He stood there, holding the flag, until he was shoved and felt the need to step away from the gate.
“Oddly enough, it’s almost as if you’re eating a spicy dish and another flavor kicks in,” he added. “I thought ‘oh those must be the pepper balls I’m feeling.’”
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Kat Abughazaleh, a congressional candidate running for Illinois’ Ninth District, was also at the protest and described Evans on social media afterwards as “the nicest dude you’ll ever meet, wildly dependable, and apparently capable of taking the coolest photo of 2025.” Evans has recently been volunteering for her campaign.
Comments online noted how exposed Evans was. Amid all of the smoke, he stands out in Wescott’s photo as an aging man with a thick mop of hair. Evans had respirators and protective gear at home from his former career, but he said he went there purposefully without any of that gear, more as a point against the authorities rather than out of a disregard for his own safety. He did acknowledge the striking nature of Wescott’s photo and understood why it took off. He’s there, amid a cloud of tear gas “just as a person.” Of course, the American flag helped, he noted.
“It gives the illusion I was standing as some lone warrior in a cloud of gas,” Evans said. “It just happened to be the way the photo was framed. But people got hurt, people were hurt purposefully.”
Others online were amused at the fact that Evans had not one, but two flags on him. While he carried a large one on a pole, a small flag on a stick stuck out from his back pocket. “I like the sidearm flag, this Devil understands ‘one is none and two is one’ rule,” one comment on the Marine Corps’ subreddit noted. Evans himself said he wasn’t sure why he brought a smaller backup flag. He ended up giving it to another protester later that day.
The Marine veteran plans to go back to the Broadview facility to join more future protests. He said that even with the clash, he doesn’t fear other American citizens.
And if they fire more tear gas and pepper balls?
“Pain only hurts,” Evans said.
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## Nicholas Slayton
### Contributing Editor
Nicholas Slayton is a Contributing Editor for Task & Purpose. In addition to covering breaking news, he writes about history, shipwrecks, and the military’s hunt for unidentified anomalous phenomenon (formerly known as UFOs).
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