On September 24th, 1942, three months shy of his 20th birthday, this combat veteran of WWII in the Pacific stood with several dozen other enlistees, at Fort Dix, N.J., prepared to join the United States Army. It had taken me eight months after the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor, by the Japanese, to convince my father to sign the permission paper my lack of seniority demanded. Preliminaries: medical and routine completed, we were called to attention to be sworn in by the officer in charge. I still recall the oath, by which I swore to defend the United States from all enemies – foreign and domestic. For me, it has been a life-long impetus for service.
That said, especially the reference to domestic enemies in Article III, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution and the portion of Section 3, about giving other enemies “aid and comfort by doing damage to the government of the United States and its agencies,” my attention was drawn to the scene captured on the TV News, on last Monday, September 30th, as Republican House members emerged after voting to shut the Government down and some of them boasted of their success, as planned, to have achieved it. A glance at the section was convincing proof (buttressed by video clips, graphic enough to support a charge of treason.)
Armed with this evidence and the oath I have taken, this veteran calls on all appropriate officials of the National Government and The Congress, to pursue charges of treason against those members of the U.S. House of Representatives identified as perpetrators on the aforementioned video clips. This in response to having given aid and comfort to enemies of the United States, by their planned and malicious actions---- as described in the appropriate sections of the United States Constitution.
As Sir John Harrington put it, so aptly, centuries ago, treason never prospers. If it did, none would dare call it by name. We must call it by its rightful name and its practitioners, by theirs… because we cannot tolerate either, if this great Constitutional democracy is to endure.
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