I put my life on the line in the Hindu Kush. I killed people for this country. I watched brothers die for this country. I held Mac as he bled out so I could live another day.
I did those things because I believed in something. I believed I was protecting Americans. Protecting the Constitution. Protecting the idea that this place, with all its flaws, stood for something worth dying for.
Renee Good was a 37-year-old mother. She was an American citizen. Federal agents shot her in the head on January 7th, and she died.
Alex Pretti was a 37-year-old ICU nurse. He spent his life saving people. He was an American citizen. Federal agents killed him yesterday while he stood in the street holding a phone.
I need someone to explain to me what I was fighting for.
I need someone to tell me why Mac gave his life so that, twenty-four years later, federal agents could gun down American citizens in American streets. I need to understand how we got from “Home of the Brave" to masked agents beating and shooting our own people.
I've stayed quiet. I've tried to heal. I've poured coffee for my ghosts and written stories about mountains and told myself the sacrifice meant something.
But I cannot watch this and stay silent.
I know what it looks like when armed men operate without accountability. I've seen it in places we called "failed states." I never thought I'd see it here.
Those of us who served…we didn't do it for a flag or a politician. We did it for the person next to us, and for the idea that Americans don't have to live in fear of their own government.
I'm watching that idea die in Minneapolis.
And I'm done being quiet about it. You should be done too.