Return To Decency

Yesterday made me remember a certain time. It was April 5, 1968. You’ll remember, of course, that as the day after assassin James Earl Ray murdered Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee. I wasn’t in the United States at the time. That didn’t leave me unaffected. The whole I-Corps area was about to explode. We forgot about the regular enemy and worked on protecting ourselves from ourselves.

On that day, the head of Naval Security at our base sent a “Brother” shipmate and me to the back gate of our base with orders to prevent anyone from entering, or exiting, the compound. We did, but it was scary. A steady line of sailors sought to leave to join, what we found later, was a planned mass demonstration. With each person, or group turned back, we took a long breath. Only those of us in the security force were supposed to have weapons, but what a joke. Down on the roads leading from our base to Da Nang, you could buy anything from an AK-47 to a 357 Magnum.

It was a bad day for us, and for America. I was scared for myself and for my country. I never thought I’d see anything like it ever again.

Until yesterday.

I’m more afraid for my country now than I was in 1968. When the president of the United States of America uses social media to intimidate a federal worker who is testifying as a witness before a congressional committee, we have reached a fork in the Road of History from which there may be no point of return.

Before yesterday, I feared America was being led as a professional wrestling extravaganza. Now I think it operates more like a mafia family.

I don’t carry an M16 these days, but I do have a voice, and I think I need to use it. I think every American who longs to see a return to decency in this country needs to do so. It’s important.

America said it needed us in 1968 so I went where they sent me. I know it needs me now so I’m going where I must. It will be a long and rocky road back to decency, but I believe that Americans can do it.