COLUMN: A Confederate Yankee
Why in Hades?
So the madness in Pittsburg has struck like a rattlesnake, leaving me and so many others chilled to the bone. Steel City is tough, but this? What the pluperfect hell? How do certain people rationalize such behavior? If it’s not Jews, it’s black folk, Muslims, Native Americans – anyone who is “different.”
This attitude is encouraged by the insane rantings of the current occupant of the White House. His deranged rhetoric mimics the hateful ramblings of 70 years past, in which The Other was identified as “sub-human.” I don’t wonder at the response of many in the Steel City, suggesting Trump wasn’t welcome.
Excuse me, people, but my lifetime experience tells me that this hateful rant is entirely wrong and unjustified. In my 20s, I was part of one of America’s elite fighting units: the 101st Airborne. My medical platoon had a mix of guys. Most were white lads from middle America, but there were also black people, Jewish people, Latinos and a Navajo. There was even a pair – twin brothers – of devout Muslims among us.
And we quickly learned that those differences made no difference; you could trust any of them with your life.
We were a bit different in that, though medics, we also trained like infantry, with firearms. We carried guns as well as our medical supplies onto the battlefield. We were prepared to do everything to protect our injured comrades-in-arms.
So what the hell? I have to ask yet again; these guys, no matter their color or religion, are our fellow Americans for whom patriotism was and is at the forefront. Where do people get the idea that just because of superficial differences hate and violence are justified? Where does Donald Trump dig up the filth he regularly flings at others?
Sorry, Donald, you ARE to blame. As holder of the highest office in this land, your words – even the most foul of them – matter a great deal. Certainly there are additional factors that play into this mad atmosphere, but your bull-crap is taken by some on the fringes as gospel, and they take it as approval of the most heinous of behaviors.
Fellow citizens, ENOUGH. We MUST make it abundantly clear that such behavior cannot continue. I hope that come Election Day, all of us will do exactly that!