Against All Enemies, Foreign and Domestic
When I joined the army, I took an oath to the United States of America to support and defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
At the time, that part about enemies wasn’t complicated to my 19 year old mind. An enemy was an enemy and at the time, I assumed that all of those were somewhere in a different part of the world. I deployed to a desert and spent some time face to face with that notion. Enemies, foreign.
Last week, it became clear what enemies, domestic, look like. They look like my family. They look like my neighbors. They look like, and some of them are, fellow members of the armed forces. They look like me.
My country was literally under attack on Jan 6. From enemies, domestic. By people from Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Alabama, Texas. All states where I have lived. By people from Tennessee, where I live today.
It’s not that I’m surprised these people became enemies, it’s that so many prominent conservative voices and Republican law makers are not punishing them as such.
Almost 20 years ago, when the plane hit the second tower, we knew it was an attack. We found out quickly we’d been attacked by enemies, foreign. We began a decades long war against those we considered enemies, foreign.
