Reflections From A Veteran

Reflections From A Veteran Reflections from a Veteran is my article length reflections on politics and an open invitation for productive political discourse. "Resilience Studies at Ft.

Education:
"Hard Knocks Military Academy." Leonard Wood."

06/10/2026

Community, Neighbor, and Service

By Reflections From A Veteran

One of the things I have never agreed with is defining community primarily by race or ethnicity. I view each neighborhood, city, county, state, and nation as a distinct community. Race and ethnicity in my eyes are not of themselves a community, and dividing by them becomes divisive. When you divide by race and ethnicity, you start excluding others. Eventually a portion of your defined community or others takes an us-versus-them view because you are doing so. What defines a true community in your eyes?

To me, any fight for rights, justice, or basic human respect is my fight because everyone is part of those communities. Those are not Black issues, White issues, Hispanic issues, or Asian issues. They are human issues. Every one of us has a stake in whether people are treated with dignity and respect. If rights and justice belong to all of us, who should stand in defense of them?

Fighting for the rights, humanity, and respect of our neighbors requires the use of discernment and discretion. Not every fight is for those things despite what we might think at first blush. Lets each take our time, research the issue or incident, and understand it as fully as we can before taking a position. If after doing so we believe those principles have been violated, then we should take a stand peacefully and civilly. How do you decide when an issue deserves your voice and support?

I grew up in a very mixed and very poor neighborhood. Many of the kids I grew up with, White, Black, and Mexican, are serving time or in the ground because they never learned those lessons. Sadly, some of them were my friends. Before we were old enough to be taught otherwise, we played together and it did not matter what color someone's skin was. They were simply another kid in the neighborhood. How much of our view of community comes from the lessons we learn as children?

Looking back, that lesson has stayed with me far longer than any lesson about race ever did. To this day it kills me that I got jumped for daring to be my skin color and attend a summer program at our neighborhood park. It utterly shatters me that a young Black kid I knew and respected was killed on a dare because of his skin color. Those experiences reinforced something I already believed: hatred and prejudice are not confined to one race, one ethnicity, or one community. What experiences have most shaped your understanding of your neighbors?

That does not mean there are no boundaries to community. For me, my primary community stops at my nation's borders. That is not because people elsewhere are less human or less deserving of dignity. It is because we only have so many resources, so much time, and so much attention to give. I focus on things at home. When everyone here has their rights respected, everyone is fed, educated, and has a roof over their head, then I can broaden that scope, but not before.

That view comes directly from how I understand community. You always start in your home, then your family, then your neighbors before you worry about elsewhere. To me, even at a national level, you're my neighbor. We share the same nation, many of the same institutions, and many of the same challenges. Whether we know each other personally or not, our lives are connected in countless ways. Where do you believe our responsibilities to our neighbors begin and end?

There is also a very pragmatic reason for those priorities. When you do not take care of your household, your family, or your neighbors, those people may not be able to help you when you need it. And sooner or later we all need help. Not almost everyone. Everyone. Either they needed help at some point, or they died young. Human beings simply do not make it through life entirely on their own.

We are raised by others, taught by others, protected by others, fed by others, and cared for by others. If we live long enough, age alone usually proves the point. Community matters because every one of us will eventually find ourselves needing the support of others. Strong communities are built before the crisis arrives, not after it. They are built by people investing in one another so that no one has to face life's hardships entirely alone.

There is another part of this that I think is often misunderstood. Service to others should never be about obligation because as soon as it becomes such, you're forgetting what service is about. Many people speak about service in terms of duty. I never did. Even in the Army, I considered it a privilege, not a duty. Standing for others, helping others, defending others, and contributing to the communities I belonged to never felt like a burden I was forced to carry.

It felt like a privilege I was fortunate enough to have. To this day, I view it the same way. It is a privilege to stand for the rights of others. It is a privilege to help your neighbors. It is a privilege to strengthen your community. Service means more when it comes from gratitude and conviction rather than compulsion. What motivates a person to serve others at their best?

Community has never been about race for me. It has never been about ethnicity. It has never been about dividing people into competing groups. Community is built through shared lives, shared experiences, mutual respect, and people choosing to stand beside one another when it matters most. It begins in the home, expands to family and neighbors, and eventually reaches the nation itself. To belong to a community worth calling your own and to have the opportunity to serve it will always be one of life's greatest privileges.

Sincerely,

One Who Trained as Both Liberty's Sword and Shield












06/07/2026

When Protest Forgets Its Purpose

By Reflections From A Veteran

Ok, let's talk about some of the pushback surrounding the South Carolina Rick Chow murder trial.

While yes, Rick Chow shot 14-year-old Cyrus Carmack-Belton, a black teen, there are additional details that are often left out of the discussion. The young man entered the store behaving suspiciously with an empty backpack, picking up and putting down water bottles before leaving. The Chows' son, believing the young man had stolen something, pursued him out of the store. At some point, the teen pulled out a semi-automatic handgun and was subsequently shot. After the evidence was presented, along with testimony from 15 witnesses, Rick Chow was ultimately found not guilty by reason of defense of his son.

That seems fairly straightforward, yet now, in protest and claiming it is in response to racism, people are placing various false orders with Chinese restaurants throughout the country.

This ignores the fact that a fair number of black Americans took part in the trial. In fact, Chow's defense attorney was black, and of the 12-member jury that decided the verdict, three men and two women were black. Roughly 42 percent of the jury was black, while the remainder was made up of people from a variety of different backgrounds.

While I understand that the teen and his shooter were of different races, it is hard to call the verdict itself racist when the jury had a fairly strong racial composition, particularly with regard to black jurors.

Beyond that, what benefit is served by targeting businesses and employees at completely unrelated businesses throughout the country? I could understand protesting outside of the Chow's store or the courthouse if you disagree with the verdict, as those locations are directly tied to the case and its outcome.

But causing financial pain and disrupting others you assume to be Asian in response to actions taken by a single family who faced a jury of their peers is completely unhinged.

While it is true that many Chinese, Korean, and Thai restaurants and stores in this country are owned by people from those cultures, they employ people from a great many cultural backgrounds. Likewise, people of every background in this nation are customers of those businesses.

This turns such a protest into the equivalent of firing a gun into the air. Chances are it is not going to accomplish anything positive, and it is likely to harm someone with no connection whatsoever to the thing you are upset about—or accomplish nothing at all.

As such, all this sort of protest does is create division and friction.

Don't get me wrong. Racism, despite all efforts, still exists in this country and it should be condemned wherever it is found. But there is a vast difference between a jury made up largely of black Americans deciding on a not guilty verdict and a racist verdict being handed down in favor of a black, unarmed teen's killer.

I could even understand, to a degree, this sort of anger had an all-white jury made the decision.

When are those of you protesting in this manner going to wake up to the fact that this sort of unfocused and hate-filled protest can only cause harm?

Now, I'm well aware some of you may read this piece and disagree. That's fine, but I have to ask: how do you think we should tailor our juries in a manner you would find more fair while still maintaining fairness for everyone involved?

Forty-six to fifty percent of the population in Columbia, South Carolina, is white. Forty percent is black, and the remaining population is made up of various other ethnic and racial backgrounds. Here we had roughly the same percentage of white and black jurors, along with two jurors of unknown backgrounds.

I won't claim the verdict was right or wrong. Like many Americans, I knew nothing about this case and only learned of it when a YouTube video appeared in my For You feed.

Only those who saw the full trial can judge the case with any real degree of accuracy, and it is entirely possible that two reasonable people could interpret the evidence differently.

But twelve jurors decided the verdict together, and any one of them could have chosen not to agree with the consensus if they believed that not guilty was the wrong verdict. Had that happened, we would have seen a hung jury and likely a retrial.

That, however, was not the route those twelve jurors chose to take, and only they truly know what led them to the decision they reached.

Sincerely,

One Who Trained as Both Liberty's Sword and Shield

06/07/2026

The True Cost of a Moment

By Reflections From A Veteran

I am really tired of attempts to make every violent encounter between Blacks and Whites into an incident of racism. Most violent encounters have far less to do with race than they do with the classic causes of violence: greed, jealousy, lust, revenge, personal hatred, fear, pride, and anger. That is not to say race is never a factor. It clearly can be. However, far too often people rush to make race the central issue before they have honestly examined what happened.

The recent Karmelo Anthony case is a perfect example of why I feel this way. What we have heard thus far is that this began as a disagreement involving another team's tent. We know Karmelo brought a knife to a school event. We know Austin Metcalf was unarmed. We know the stabbing itself is not disputed. We know eyewitnesses, police statements, and testimony have largely aligned with one another rather than presenting wildly contradictory versions of events. Yet despite all of that, much of the public conversation has centered on race rather than the actual events that led to a young man's death.

Nothing we have heard points to race being the cause of the confrontation itself. Instead, what we see is a dispute between individuals that escalated into deadly violence. Adding racism into the discussion without evidence does not help us understand what happened. It simply adds another layer of toxicity to a situation that is already tragic enough on its own. The focus should be on determining guilt or innocence, establishing accountability, and asking what can be done to prevent another tragedy like this from occurring anywhere else in this great country. How can we ever hope to understand a tragedy if we begin by debating narratives rather than examining the facts that produced it?

My heart breaks for everyone involved. The way the Metcalf family's lives were altered is abhorrent. No parent should ever have to bury a son. No sibling should ever have to bury a brother. Austin Metcalf was a high school senior. He should have been looking forward to graduation, adulthood, and the opportunities that lay ahead of him. Instead, his family must carry a loss that can never truly be repaired.

Karmelo Anthony's life was permanently altered that day as well. Whatever the final outcome of the case may be, the future he once expected for himself is gone. Witnesses, classmates, friends, and families all carry burdens created by a single moment. Violence rarely confines itself to the individuals directly involved. Its effects spread outward, touching dozens or even hundreds of lives long after the initial act is over.

At the heart of this tragedy is the loss of potential. Austin Metcalf lost not only his life, but every future that life might have contained. The husband he might have become. The father he might have become. The career he might have built. The people he might have helped. The experiences he might have had. When a young person dies, we do not merely lose who they were. We lose who they might have become.

A different form of that loss exists for Karmelo as well. If he spends the rest of his life in prison, much of his own future disappears with it. Not in the same way, and certainly not to the same degree, but lost nonetheless. That is what makes tragedies involving young people so heartbreaking. We are not looking at lives that have already largely been lived. We are looking at futures that were still being written.

Viewed through that lens, I struggle with the idea that justice can ever be fully achieved in situations like this. A court can determine guilt. A court can impose punishment. A court can hold someone accountable. Those things matter and they are necessary. What a court cannot do is restore what was lost. Austin Metcalf will not come home. His family will still have an empty chair at future holidays and family gatherings. If a loss can never be undone, what should justice honestly seek to accomplish?

If Karmelo is ultimately convicted, I want accountability. I want the sentence to reflect the seriousness of what occurred. Yet I find myself asking a different question than I would have asked ten years ago. Ten years ago, I likely would have called for the harshest punishment available and left it at that. Today, I find myself asking which outcome allows for some measure of good to emerge from a terrible situation.

Part of the reason is Karmelo's age. If he were several years older with an extensive criminal history, I would likely view the matter very differently. But he was still in high school. As far as we know, this was not the story of a hardened career criminal. That does not excuse anything. It does, however, add another layer to the tragedy. One young man is dead. Another young man may spend the rest of his life behind bars. Two families will carry the consequences for the rest of their lives. There is nothing triumphant about any of that.

Rather than focusing solely on punishment, I find myself thinking about prevention. Accountability remains important, but so does finding ways to reduce the chances that another family finds itself in a similar position. If we learn nothing from tragedies such as this, then all we have accomplished is adding more suffering to a situation already filled with it.

For that reason, I believe that if convicted, part of an appropriate sentence should involve speaking to young people in schools, youth centers, and juvenile detention facilities about what happened and what it cost. Not because it would erase the harm that was done. Nothing can do that. Rather, because we desperately need to find ways to drive home the true cost of violence to our youth.

Too often, we teach those lessons in a detached manner. We discuss prison sentences, criminal records, convictions, and statistics. Yet for many young people, those concepts remain abstract. What is not abstract is seeing a man stand before them and explain how a decision made in seconds permanently altered dozens of lives. What is not abstract is hearing firsthand about the grief of families, the loss of freedom, the burden of guilt, and the realization that there is no way to go back and undo what has been done.

The visual representation of those consequences carries its own power. A young person can hear about prison for years and never truly internalize it. Seeing a man standing before them in a prison uniform, wearing shackles and handcuffs, while explaining exactly how one decision cost him his freedom and another young man his life is not an abstract lesson. It is a living demonstration of consequences. How do we teach the true cost of violence to our youth before they are forced to learn it through tragedy?

I am not claiming that such an approach is perfect. I am claiming that we lose far too many young people every year to these sorts of decisions and their consequences. If a single teenager walks away from a fight because of a lesson learned from someone who has lived through those consequences, the benefit is immeasurable. If one young person decides not to carry a weapon, not to escalate an argument, or not to let a moment of anger dictate the rest of their life, then incalculable harm has been prevented.

Potential is what is truly being lost in these tragedies. Potential that never gets the opportunity to become reality. Potential that families, friends, and communities never get to see fulfilled. If we are serious about honoring those losses, then our goal cannot simply be punishment. It must also be prevention.

We owe it to every young person in this country to do everything we can to ensure that fewer futures are buried and fewer lives are defined by a single catastrophic day.

Sincerely,

One Who Trained as Both Liberty's Sword and Shield












06/06/2026

Justice Was Not Served In The Aaron Spencer Case

By Reflections From A Veteran

While I want to congratulate Aaron Spencer, the Arkansas father who was facing murder charges, on the case's dismissal, justice was not served here. I'm sure if you read my earlier piece in support of Spencer, you're wondering why I would say this. A dismissal is not the same as an acquittal. In this case, when the judge dismissed the case on Thursday, the judge was telling everyone that justice could not be preserved. If a case can no longer reliably determine the truth, what responsibility does the justice system have at that point?

The reason for the dismissal, and why justice could not be preserved, is that exculpatory evidence was not preserved, nor did one of the sheriff's deputies maintain the chain of custody of the supposed victim's dash cam, having left it on his desk in his personal office after viewing the footage. Later, the SD card for the camera was found to be missing, and the internal memory had returned to its default settings, erasing any footage that may have existed. This means evidence that could have potentially freed Spencer was lost by the very law enforcement agency investigating the case.

Beyond that, the case should have stopped the moment it became known that evidence had been lost. Instead, when it was first announced that the memory card was missing, the sheriff's office blamed the prosecutor's office, and the prosecutor attempted to proceed with the case. Both of those are unforgivable failures of justice.

While I had a hard time seeing where justice could be served in trying Aaron Spencer, considering the circumstances that led to him taking a man's life, that is very different from a case later being tossed out due to the mishandling of evidence. It really doesn't matter if a case is something mild in the grand scheme of things or first-degree murder. Each and every case where evidence is mishandled is a case where the system failed justice. What consequences should exist when those entrusted with preserving evidence fail in that responsibility?

That is something that should result in a detective, lab tech, or prosecutor being fired. Especially in a case like Spencer's, where the charge in question was second-degree murder, it is especially abhorrent to justice that evidence later became missing.

What is most striking is that justice failed twice in this case.

An earlier judge was removed from the case after refusing to recuse herself after putting an overly broad gag order on Spencer. As with the case's later dismissal, that is an admission by the Arkansas courts that justice was not being served. While the judge's misconduct was curable and only created a minor delay in the case, the detective's misconduct was a fatal blow to any meaningful justice and potentially calls into question other cases handled by that detective.

That being said, both the prosecutor and the sheriff had to have been aware of the issue before this point and allowed the case to proceed. As such, both owe it to the residents of Lonoke County, Arkansas, to resign over this failure to ensure justice. If public officials become aware that justice can no longer be preserved in a case, what obligations do they owe both the accused and the public they serve?

Sincerely,

One Who Trained as Both Liberty's Sword and Shield












06/02/2026

The PEACE Act And The Road To Greater Cruelty

By Reflections From A Veteran

I just learned about what might be the worst thought-out voter initiative that I have ever heard of. It comes to us from the great state of Oregon. Some fine Oregonians have proposed ballot initiative IP-28, which would ban all fishing, hunting, animal testing, and nearly all animal husbandry practices within the state.

While its title may sound humane and even admirable, The PEACE Act (People for the Elimination of Animal Cruelty Exemptions) would have catastrophic repercussions in a state where several of its largest industries revolve around the raising and harvesting of animals.

Commercial fishing alone would cost the state 10,321 jobs and approximately $1.1 billion in economic activity. Another 30,325 jobs, along with roughly $4.4 billion in economic losses, would disappear as livestock and meat supply chains were shut down. Through large swaths of the state, these industries represent either the jobs themselves or the economic engines that create jobs. The loss of those industries would also lead to the unemployment of roughly 14,200 people who make a living supplying the daily needs of farmers, fishermen, ranchers, and their families, at a cost of an additional $2.2 billion in lost economic activity. What plan exists to replace those jobs and the economic activity they generate?

Those 54,846 jobs and $7.7 billion in economic activity are only the beginning of what IP-28 would cost the state.

Some will argue that jobs should not outweigh animal welfare concerns. Fair enough. The problem is that IP-28 does not merely impact jobs. It impacts the very systems that currently manage wildlife, fund conservation, conduct research, and provide food.

Beyond the direct economic consequences, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) would face collapse or at least severe shrinkage due to the loss of funding generated through hunting and fishing licenses and permits. The result would be diminished wildlife management and reduced protection for large portions of Oregon's natural landscape.

That creates another problem that supporters of the initiative appear to have overlooked. Advocates may argue that wildlife could instead be managed through humane alternatives. That sounds admirable on paper. The problem is that such methods cannot effectively manage wildlife populations, disease outbreaks, and habitat degradation from overgrazing across an entire state.

Without the active culling of various species, and given the current lack of sufficient natural predators, the primary mechanisms of population control would become disease and starvation. The result could be ecological damage unlike anything seen in many regions of the United States since the Dust Bowl era. Not hundreds. Not thousands. Millions upon millions of animals could die slowly through starvation, disease, and environmental collapse. How would Oregon prevent those outcomes without the wildlife management tools it is proposing to eliminate?

Others will argue that nature should simply be left alone to find its own balance. That sounds reasonable until one remembers that Oregon is not an untouched wilderness. It is a modern state whose landscapes, predator populations, waterways, and wildlife numbers have already been shaped by generations of human activity.

In the meantime, crops, meadows, and forests would be grazed bare. And the consequences would not stop with wildlife. Imagine what that would do to Oregon's hiking, biking, outdoor recreation, and tourism industries.

The initiative's problems extend beyond wildlife management as well.

Now I know we have all seen horror stories involving animal testing. I readily agree that truly atrocious and abhorrent things have been done to animals over the years in the name of science. However, there remain many forms of research that cannot currently be conducted without animal testing. Everything from medical studies to ecological and biological research would be hindered and, in many cases, halted outright within the state.

I can already hear some readers saying that science will simply find alternatives. In some cases it will. In others it already has. But replacing some forms of animal testing is not the same thing as replacing all forms of animal testing, and IP-28 makes little distinction between the two. Which specific forms of research currently dependent upon animal testing would remain possible under the restrictions being proposed?

Ironically, many of the ecological and biological challenges created by eliminating hunting and fishing would likely increase the need for precisely the kinds of research the initiative seeks to prohibit.

Maybe the cruelest irony of all is that IP-28 specifically bans the euthanization of injured or sick animals. That would make it a crime to grant starving, sick, and dying animals the mercy of a quick death.

If you believe that outcome is preferable to hunting or fishing, I strongly encourage you to look at what happens to wildlife populations when habitats collapse or become severely degraded. I can guarantee those images are among the most heartbreaking you will ever see.

Some will undoubtedly view that as compassionate. I would ask them whether prolonging suffering is truly more humane than ending it.

Nor are wildlife the only animals affected by these provisions.

The law would not just affect animals on ranches, farms, laboratories, or in the wild. It would directly impact the pets living in the homes of approximately 2.46 to 2.79 million Oregonians. If your pet were suffering from a slow but terminal illness or a catastrophic injury, humane euthanasia would no longer be an option.

IP-28 also specifically bans the impregnating of animals. That provision would affect the breeding of many beloved companion animals. It could also threaten endangered species recovery efforts taking place in zoos, fisheries, hatcheries, and conservation programs throughout the state.

Supporters may respond that breeding animals is itself the problem. The difficulty with that argument is that it makes little distinction between commercial exploitation, responsible pet ownership, and conservation programs designed to prevent extinction. What exemptions, if any, should exist for conservation programs attempting to prevent the extinction of endangered species?

If you do not believe what I have laid out here, I encourage you to read the proposed initiative yourself:

https://sos.oregon.gov/admin/Documents/irr/2026/028text.pdf

At the moment, it appears Oregonians may have the opportunity to vote on this initiative in the not-too-distant future, as approximately 120,000 signatures have reportedly been collected in support of placing it on the ballot.

Sadly, I suspect many of those signatories never read the ten-page proposal. Of those who did, I suspect many failed to fully consider the consequences these restrictions would have on wildlife, agriculture, scientific research, conservation efforts, pet ownership, employment, and the broader Oregon economy. How many voters can accurately describe the major provisions of the initiative without first rereading the text?

Perhaps I am wrong and every signer fully understood the proposal. If so, they are free to disagree with me. What concerns me is how often voters are asked to decide complex policy questions through little more than a title and a slogan.

Let me finish by stating that we should all oppose needless cruelty, whether it is directed at animals or human beings. Compassion is a virtue. Mercy is a virtue. Responsible stewardship is a virtue.

That is precisely why proposals such as IP-28 deserve careful scrutiny. Broad, poorly considered laws can sometimes create exactly the outcomes they claim to prevent.

In my view, IP-28 is one of those laws.

Should enough signatures be validated for the initiative to reach the ballot, the people of Oregon will have an opportunity to decide its fate. Hopefully, they will look beyond the title, beyond the slogans, and beyond the emotional appeals and carefully consider the real-world consequences before casting their votes. What would Oregon look like five or ten years after the initiative's passage if its supporters are wrong?

Because if even a fraction of the outcomes described above come to pass, Oregon may discover that in attempting to eliminate cruelty, it instead institutionalized it.

Sincerely,

One Who Trained As Liberty's Sword and Shield.












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