Political Blitz or National Fumble

I had hoped this issue would go away, but it simply hasn’t. President Trump’s itchy Twitter finger took a break from the grade school name calling with his temperamental equal in North Korea to throw a cultural hand grenade into the pro sports world.

What started with him soothing his pride by disinviting Steph Curry to the Whitehouse long after Curry already said he would not attend, morphed into him going after the issue of players in the NFL kneeling during the national anthem.

He spent a disproportionate amount of time on this issue and took a harder stance on this than he has about almost anything else during his entire presidency. While watching him tweet incessantly for days, he misidentified an Iranian missile launch that happened months ago as current news, and that’s when I decided to just say my piece.

I think telling the NFL how to run their league is below the office of the President.

I would appreciate it if he focused on the world events currently shaping issues on his plate instead.

He currently has an increasingly hostile North Korean regime testing new missiles weekly. There’s the Iranian nuclear deal he seems set on derailing with no idea on how to actually curb their nuclear ambitions. Iraq as always is completely unstable. The Kurds have voted for independence, with Turkey essentially saying it would lead to an ethnic cleansing. Long hanging in the shadows is a 16-year war in Afghanistan he pretends he has well in hand while simultaneously just repackaging our current strategy as a new one. And though it seems like old news at this point, there’s the threat of ISIS, and a whole host of other world-altering issues I won’t bother to drone on about.

I don’t think this is the best use of his time. More importantly, I see this as an intentional attempt to divide our country so that he can energize his base against an imaginary enemy. We are dealing with enough division naturally after a tumultuous last couple of decades. We don’t need the President creating more chaos simply because he needs an empty and pointless political win after teaming up with Democrats the last month because his own party refuses to work with him.

All that said, I’m sure knowing where I stand on this issue will provide the context needed to judge my previous statements, so here goes.

When I joined the Marines… When I sacrificed my mental and physical health along with my relationships… When I went to war and killed an enemy without even knowing what the end goal was, it wasn’t for a flag, and it wasn’t for the national anthem.

I joined because I cared about my fellow man. I joined because I didn’t want to stand by idle while someone else fought in my place while I got drunk with everyone else in college. I joined because I wanted to do my part for our generations’ war fighting effort.

I sacrificed and willingly went to war because after I joined, the men and women to my left and right became my family. I spent 12-16 hours a day with them in terrible conditions, and the bonds we formed were closer than any I have had in my entire life. I would have killed or died for any of them, and they would have done the same for me. This wasn’t about the flag, the anthem, or even the country if I am being honest. It was about the people I loved and the people that loved them.

I personally will never do anything but snap to attention when I hear the national anthem, and seeing the flag itself evokes a great deal of emotion inside me. I have seen friends under that flag. I have brought what’s left of their bodies across the country to their families, and I have seen those same families handed flags to hold instead of their loved ones. For those reasons, I could never see myself doing anything but standing stoically while thinking about them each and every time I hear that anthem and see the stars and stripes waving in the wind.

However, my experiences are unique, and only shared by an increasingly isolated segment of our population that have chosen to volunteer in our countries war efforts. There are large portions of this country that have had vastly different experiences and I think that needs to be acknowledged.

The Flag:

For many out there, the flag and anthem are symbols that represent centuries of broken promises.

It started with men who owned slaves stating that all men are created equal and has lasted in various forms all the way into modern day. These injustices may not seem real, current and relevant to you, but whether you want to admit it or not, they exist.

I have personally seen the disparity in the way me and my childhood best friend were treated by the police growing up. I played with a bb gun my entire adolescence and never once was worried I would suffer the same fate as Tamir Rice. There are sitting Senators who have marched for desegregation and been hospitalized as a result. Our ugliest days may be behind us, but they aren’t that far gone, and the remnants of this disgusting and dark part of our history still live on.

While I may not participate in or agree with the methods used to shed light on this issue, I understand why others may. I also understand this is just symbolic of the larger fight for equality without stipulations, without mandates, and without knee-jerk judgments of intentions.

The people on the field, the people in your Facebook feed, and the friends and family you have talked with about this don’t hold any malicious intentions. Both sides of this discussion have gotten so heated that anyone they view as “the other” is villainized and intentionally misunderstood so we can throw on our team jerseys, yell at each other, feeling self-righteous about the results.

Frankly, I’m sick of the fighting, I’m sick of the division, I’m sick of our loyalty to random parties or symbols instead of each other. Whatever your stance is on this issue, I would like to ask a favor of you.

Take the time out to actually talk to someone you disagree with while keeping an open mind.

If you’re at a game and you feel offended seeing someone sitting during the anthem, buy them a beer, ask them why they feel so strongly about this and actually listen. We owe it to the generations behind us to fix what we have broken in our society. I want to leave a better and more harmonious world behind, and I know the vast majority of us do as well.

The cure for what ails us is simple. Respect the rights of others to feel what they feel and express themselves in peaceful ways. Then approach each other with a genuine desire to solve problems and share why you see the world the way you do. Like it or not our experiences form the foundation of who we are and how we view the world. Each of our lives is unique and we have reasons why we do the things we do. If we can use that as a starting point, maybe the fractured and toxic social fabric of our country can be salvaged after all.