Old White Guys

When I was nineteen I was often low-crawling through Raider Creek in Fort Benning, Georgia while being harassed mentally, physically, and emotionally 24/7 in Officers Candidate School on my way to becoming a second lieutenant, on my way to earning Jump Wings, on my way to earning a Green Beret at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on my way to South Vietnam earning my Combat Infantryman’s Badge, on my way to becoming a 100% disabled Vietnam veteran. Colin Kaepernick was lionized as a hero for standing up and being counted. Like other Vietnam veterans, who not only stood up and were counted, we laid our lives on the line for what we believed in. However, we were not lionized. We were all swept into a closet of shame to be hidden away for decades until recently. Now, we Vietnam veterans are in vogue and every other person I meet is a Vietnam war hero, even if their age does not fit the time frame If you wear a red MAGA hat, there are several restaurants now who refuse to serve you equating Trump supporters with Nazis and members of the KKK. According to the mainstream media, the loony left, and Hollywood spokespeople, I am a racist, misogynist, white supremacist, backward-thinking, narrow-minded, unenlightened redneck. Why? Simply because I support Donald J. Trump as my President. I am white, a male, a Christian, a conservative, a heterosexual, a 100% disabled Vietnam combat veteran, a man who proudly stands for the National Anthem, and a life member of the NRA. How did we get things so turned around in this great nation?

Colin Kaepernick started a revolution showing disrespect to our national flag and national anthem, the symbol of the very freedoms he chose to protest. He has been hailed as a hero while veterans with missing arms and legs are often ignored. I had friends who came home from Vietnam with that symbol draped over their coffin, and it was folded up and given to a heart-broken grieving wife, mother, father, child, or fiancée, and snot-nosed spoiled millionaire kids like him think they can desecrate such sacred symbols because their sensibilities have been impugned? Not only that, Kaepernick’s protest was against white police brutality against black Americans. However, according to an article in National Review; “In reality, a randomly selected black man is overwhelmingly unlikely to be victim of police violence — and though white men experience such violence even less often, the disparity is consistent with the racial gap in violent crime, suggesting that the role of racial bias is small. The media’s acceptance of the false narrative poisons the relations between law enforcement and black communities throughout the country and results in violent protests that destroy property and sometimes even claim lives.” Let’s return to “this old white guy.” Beginning in 1973, until just a few years before his death, I was very close friends with three-time World Heavyweight Champion Muhammad Ali. In 1967, as a young Green Beret second lieutenant, I voluntarily took part in racial relation seminars at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and was the only officer and only white soldier standing with black soldiers fighting for improving race relations in the military. I have fought against racism my entire adult life and would be in the forefront complaining if I believed Kaepernick’s claims had any real merit.

President Donald Trump was never labeled a racist in his life, and in fact was given awards by the NAACP and other minority-supporting organizations. What changed? He listened to America’s demands to stop illegal immigration and promised he would stop it. So did every President for the past fifty years. Watch the remarks of President Bill Clinton and President Barack Obama, both coming down hard and talking tough on illegal immigration.

The difference? President Donald Trump is the first President ever to keep all his promises to voters for his first two years in office, yet he has been attacked unmercifully, especially by certain TV networks including CNN, MSNBC, and NBC News. However, what is so disheartening to NORMAL Americans, like me, who have contributed to society is to be portrayed as miscreants and lunatics for simply supporting our President. While working on a local community action project in Wadesboro, North Carolina, near Fort Bragg, just being obstinate, as a captain, I took six very large, very muscular black senior Special Forces sergeants to lunch one day at a special restaurant. All of us were decorated Green Beret combat veterans. The eatery was owned by the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan for a very wide area. You could hear a pin drop while we sat down in the middle of that place to eat, tell jokes, war stories, and laugh among ourselves. It is “old white men” like me that you Snowflakes are slandering, libeling, and demeaning with your outrageous remarks. The silent majority is not going to stay silent much longer.