“Veterans and military family members are being fired by the thousands from federal jobs. Our health care is being gutted. Our benefits are under siege.
“This isn’t the first time veterans have had to fight for what was promised. From the Bonus Army of 1932 to the battles for the GI Bill and Agent Orange care, veterans have always led the charge for justice.
“Now, it’s our turn.
“We rally to:
-Defend veteran and military family member employment in the federal workforce.
-Stop the privatization and weakening of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
-Hold political leaders accountable for policies that harm veterans and their families.”
These words from the www.unite4veterans.org website explain why, in response to the Trumpfascists’ attempts to decimate the Veterans Administration and the fact that 30% of the US federal workforce were veterans prior to Trump/Musk/DOGE, thousands of people will be on the National Mall in DC demonstrating this Friday, June 6, the 81st anniversary of D-Day. Dozens of local actions in solidarity will also be taking place around the country.
I’m not a war veteran. I’m actually an anti-war veteran, going back to my resistance to the Vietnam war and continuing up to my activism today against the genocidal war on Gaza supported by both Biden and Trump governments. But I do have a personal connection to D-Day.
One of my favorite uncles was Uncle Vic. He was in the army during World War II. I came to know him as a gruff and quiet but kind-hearted farmer, working hard on his land, formerly the land of my paternal grandparents, in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Since my father had been raised on this particular farm and my mom had similar roots in the valley, our family visited this area often, and I saw Uncle Vic a lot.
Vic and his wife Mary were the only aunts and uncles of the many which I had who were actually making a living in part by working the land. And for me, their dairy farm was very special, a place I always enjoyed going to.
As a teenager I once asked my father about Uncle Vic’s time in the war, about which I had heard of but knew nothing about. My dad explained that he never talked about it. Vic had not been part of D-Day, but he had taken part in an Allied landing on Anzio Beach in Italy in January of 1944 and, my father told me, this was a deeply wrenching experience for him. According to my dad this was one of the beach landings that year where a very high percentage of the Allied soldiers who took part had been killed. It had clearly impacted him in a huge way and affected him for the rest of his life.
World War II was a war fought by the United States and other countries because of the seriousness of Hitlerian fascism, and as terrible as that war was, particularly for Europe and the USSR on whose land almost all of the fighting and dying took place, it was clearly necessary. Today, we in the United States are fighting Trump’s attempted fascism in different ways, not militarily. Indeed, our ability to skillfully and bravely use all of the various nonviolent tactics available to us will determine whether we successfully defend democracy and the Bill of Rights and Constitution, making it possible in the post-Trump years to dramatically shift into a completely different direction.
The “No Kings” actions happening all over the country on June 14th, 1400 or more of them so far and counting, will be huge in advancing that pro-democracy movement, but June 6th will be also. Let’s do what we can to make this D-Day memorable and effective in defense of the best within the USA, including the sacrifices made by our ancestors on the beaches of Normandy 81 years ago.
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