Youthful and naïve, I was in the fall of 2001 when President George W. Bush announced the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT)—a long, daunting conflict against a faceless enemy. The nation was still reeling from the terrorist attack that collapsed the World Trade Center, taking nearly 3,000 lives into the smoldering ruins of Ground Zero. A section of the Pentagon lay in ruins, and the crater near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, contained what little remained of Flight 93 and its heroic passengers who refused to sit idly by.
“We will fight them overseas so we do not have to fight them here at home,” Bush told us. I bought it, hook, line, and sinker. Fast forward to the last few days in which the people of New York elected a man whose faith and political views stand in direct opposition to everything we swore to uphold, President Trump hosted a former al-Qaeda terrorist in the White House, the War Department remains unwilling to make amends for culling the ranks of patriots during the COVID purge, and American continues sending money to the Taliban. Whether by commission or omission, America is betraying its military veterans — especially those of the GWOT era.
Zohran Mamdani’s rise to become mayor of the world’s most influential city is merely the highest-profile indicator of the soft crusade sweeping our homeland. The city that hosts the U.S. Navy’s annual fleet week, the city that hosted grand ticker tape parades to welcome home America’s WWII and Desert Storm vets, chose not only a radical Islamist, but a communist, representing two threats that the United States spent multiple generations’ worth of veterans fighting.
Not to be outdone, Minneapolis voters chose between two men who both demonstrate priority of affection for the Somali voting bloc over fidelity to the city, state, or nation. The indicators here are of a full-blown existential crisis across Europe. The land that birthed the principles of liberty from which the U.S. grew now frequently emphasizes rights for hostile migrants over law-abiding citizens, the priority being not on justice but — as a former M.P. admitted — “not wanting to rock the multicultural boat.” World War II veterans Alec Penstone and Carl Dekle tragically noted that the Britain and United States of today aren’t worth the sacrifice made by their generation. Their sentiments of mourning are increasingly shared by many among my generation of vets.
Adaptability is a foundational tenet of warfare, updating one’s tactics to new realities. America’s foes are expert at implementing this practice. Consider the Islamiphication of Michigan, Minnesota, and the campaign to replicate it in Texas — American territories in various states of capture without shots being fired. In one of the latest moments, Dearborn’s Muslim mayor, Abdullah Hammoud, attacked a Christian resident as a racist and unwelcome islamophobe for his concerns over naming a street in honor of a man who has expressed support for terrorism. In the same city, mosques are being strategically constructed near churches, and residents are subjected to calls to the accompanying calls to prayer over loudspeaker. Islam doesn’t play the deceptive “separation of church and state” shell game, nor is such expectation placed upon it. To elites, it’s the American birthright that’s problematic. In contrast, the progressive revolutionary’s mindset is welcomed as part of the restorative justice agenda. Marx’s ideas have been put into practice here with devastating effect.
While men and women of my generation burned much of life’s daylight in war zones across the Middle East, American elites imported masses who refuse to assimilate, contribute, and rise to the responsibility of American citizenship. This fall, Senate Democrats held up pay for military members to fight for government-funded healthcare for illegals. To top it off, on the eve of Veterans Day 2025, President Trump hosted a man whose brutality as a terrorist commander earned him a $10-million bounty for capture. I acknowledge that diplomacy is complex and foreign policy often requires partnering with unsavory characters. But offering White House red-carpet treatment to an unrepentant barbarian goes beyond what’s necessary to begin the process of reshaping alliances with a failed state.
Sending my generation overseas to fight wars that were managed for defeat took a massive psychological toll. It littered the landscape with broken marriages and children whose fathers missed the formative years — believing our labors away a worthy sacrifice to assure safety for the future. Among the fallout, GWOT veterans are more likely to commit suicide than the general population and previous generations of veterans. These Americans returned home to ongoing perceptions of being damaged goods, disconnected from the way of life they aimed to protect. Much of the public tries to absolve themselves of moral culpability for sending an invisible mercenary force to war with rituals, like 22 daily pushups. Such attempts at penance are of performative value only. Likewise, the hollow nature of the “Thanks for your service” saying becomes increasingly obvious as actions of many who speak it contradict the sentiment. One simply cannot espouse love of country and support of veterans while supporting foreign invasion and electing heads of municipality and state who are hostile to the American way.
America needs more than slogans. It needs a moral and constitutional reformation — to employ its uniformed warriors in national defense work that the nation backs in word, thought, deed, and even shared sacrifice. Its veterans need to know that the nation learned from its mistakes of foreign adventurism, and that it recognizes the difference between good and evil. We must put the days of a force made largely invisible by its all-volunteer status behind us, and return to a system in which America goes to war only when necessary, as a nation, for a purpose that every man and woman can clearly understand. This would make military service again a unifier, rather than something that isolates the nation’s defenders from those they’re sworn to defend. Finally, the American people must stop this migration that is hastening the evolution of our electoral politics into a civic suicide pact. We would most justly honor those who support the third world first by sending them to it.
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