PROFILES IN COWARDICE

 

PROFILES IN COWARDICE

©Wendell Griffen, 2021

 

This week the United States Senate will convene as a jury for the impeachment trial of Donald John Trump, former President of the United States, on the charge of inciting insurrection against the United States to prevent the peaceful transfer of presidential power to Joseph R. Biden. 

 

We will never forget where we were and what we were doing on January 6, 2021.  We will never forget watching live television footage of hundreds of Trump’s extremist followers storming the U.S. Capitol intent on stopping the Congress from confirming the certified Electoral College results for the 2020 presidential election.  Trump’s followers engaged in an attempted coup d’état on June 6 because Trump was desperate to stop Congress from confirming that Biden and his running mate, now Vice President and former U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, had soundly defeated Trump and former Vice President Michael R. Pence for re-election. 

 

People died because of the attempted coup.  Members of Congress, the Senate, and their staffs were terrified and traumatized.  Although the insurrection delayed the formal proceedings, the Members of Congress and Senators returned to their respective chambers several hours later.  They bravely fulfilled their duty to confirm the Electoral College result.

 

They were not the only brave souls in Washington on January 6.  Members of the Capitol Police bravely placed themselves between Trump’s followers and the threatened Members of Congress, Senators, and former Vice President Pence who was presiding over the Senate to announce the Electoral College result.  Members of the news media bravely reported on the insurrection despite being threatened.  Members of the National Guard were mobilized and bravely – albeit belatedly – helped remove the insurrectionists from the Capitol. 

 

The Senators will see and hear evidence about Trump’s effort to incite his supporters to overthrow the results of the 2020 election.  Yet, pundits predict that there are not enough Republican Senators who will vote to convict Trump because those Senators fear being voted out of office by Trump’s supporters the next time they seek re-election.

 

I watched as Senator Mitch McConnell led Republican Senators in showing more loyalty to Donald Trump than to the Constitution and people of the United States during Trump’s 2020 sham impeachment trial for attempting to force the leader of Ukraine, a U.S. ally, to announce a sham investigation of Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, in a failed effort to damage Joe Biden’s presidential candidacy.  I watched loyal members of the U.S. diplomatic corps and a rising Army officer risk their personal safety and careers to expose Trump’s actions.  I was proud of those patriots then.  I will remain proud of them. 

 

I was not proud of McConnell and the other Republicans who put loyalty to Trump ahead of loyalty to our nation.  They did not act honorably.  They acted cowardly.  Then, and now, I reflected on something else.

 

Years ago, I served in the U.S. Army.  During my active duty, I served with soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen at different times.  At any moment, my comrades and I knew that we could be sent anywhere in the world and be ordered to risk our lives to defend our nation.  We knew that even peacetime military training exercises involve deadly risks.   

 

Even so, we did our duty every day.  Paratroopers jumped from cargo planes.  Soldiers conducted live fire drills with explosives and other munitions.  Pilots flew missions.  Sailors launched military aircraft from aircraft carriers, conducted surface missions on seas in all kinds of weather, and probed ocean depths aboard submarines.  We were each trained and committed to throw ourselves into harms’ way at a moment’s notice.

 

We did not risk our lives to get attention.  We did not talk with our loved ones about the risks we faced each day, even during peacetime training exercises.  We faced those risks, including the risk of life-threatening injuries and death, with courage.  We honored those who sacrificed themselves before we served, and we encouraged one another by remembering their valor. 

 

None of us would have given a second thought to casting a vote to convict a colleague who tried to overthrow the government of the United States.  We would not have viewed casting that vote as an act of courage, but an act of patriotic duty.  We would have despised a colleague for refusing to convict someone who tried to overthrow the government of the United States.  Our duty was to be loyal to the Nation, even if that loyalty required our highest sacrifice. 

 

I do not know whether the Senators realize that military veterans like myself and the people who now serve in the military do not think about political polls and focus groups when it comes to the issues of duty, honor, and valor.  We pledged our lives to protect the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.  And if, by chance, we faced death, we only hoped to die fulfilling our oaths, even if no other person would ever know what we were doing when we drew our final breath.  For military veterans and our actively serving brothers and sisters, that is what we mean by courage. 

 

I regret that the Republican members of the U.S. Senate do not seem willing to view the Nation more important than their personal political survival. 

 

I regret how their cowardice dishonors the oath my military veteran colleagues and our active-duty siblings swore to uphold. 

 

And I tremble, for the future of our Nation, when politicians who hold the power to send military service personnel to risk their lives are such cowards that they will not risk the ire of a former president – and his extremist supporters – who tried to overthrow the government of the United States, while the world watched.