...so walk tall or baby, don't walk at all.
In case you have not read it, here is the Op-Ed piece that General James Mattis, U.S.M.C. and former Secretary of Defense wrote, which The Atlantic posted to its website on June 3, 2020:
IN UNION THERE IS STRENGTH
I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled.
The words “Equal Justice Under Law” are carved in the pediment of the United
States Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding.
It is a wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get
behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The
protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are
insisting that we live up to our values—our values as people and our values as
a nation.
When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to
support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that
same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional
rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the
elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.
We must reject any thinking of our cities as a “battlespace” that
our uniformed military is called upon to “dominate.” At home, we should use our
military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state
governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict—a false
conflict—between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground
that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society
they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part. Keeping
public order rests with civilian state and local
leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them.
James Madison wrote in Federalist 14 that “America united with a
handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to
foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred thousand veterans ready
for combat.” We do not need to militarize our response to protests. We need to
unite around a common purpose. And it starts by guaranteeing that all of us are
equal before the law.
Instructions given by the military departments to our troops
before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that “The Nazi slogan for
destroying us…was ‘Divide and Conquer.’ Our American answer is ‘In Union there
is Strength.’” We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis—confident that
we are better than our politics.
Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not
try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries
to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this
deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without
mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent
in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown,
but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend
our promise; and to our children.
We can come through this trying time stronger, and with a renewed
sense of purpose and respect for one another. The pandemic has shown us that it
is not only our troops who are willing to offer the ultimate sacrifice for the
safety of the community. Americans in hospitals, grocery stores, post offices,
and elsewhere have put their lives on the line in order to serve their fellow citizens and
their country. We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority
that we witnessed in Lafayette Square. We must reject and hold accountable
those in office who would make a mockery of our
Constitution. At the same time, we must remember Lincoln’s “better angels,” and
listen to them, as we work to unite.
Only by adopting a new path—which means, in truth, returning to the
original path of our founding ideals—will we again be a country admired and
respected at home and abroad.
-AK
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