“…against all enemies, foreign and domestic…”
A sincere Respectful Veterans Day to all defenders of our great nation and the marvel which is our inimitable Constitution. Every veteran I know can recall their first day of military service. For me, it was June 1995 – being offloaded from the bus to the “Bring Me Men” ramp of the United States Air Force Academy. It is from that same campus that I would four years later take the oath of office:
“I, Ryan Sweazey, having been appointed a Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
The Oath of Office
And since that June 2nd, 1999, I have dedicated my professional life to defeating the enemies or would-be enemies of our Constitution. For the two decades of war this country was engaged in, so too was I engaged – training for, deploying to, and supporting the conflicts abroad. I, like thousands of my brothers and sisters in arms, were focused on defeating an enemy which exhibited no moral or ethical bounds in its attempt to defeat us and our way of life. Now, many of those same colleagues and friends are coming to realize a new enemy, a domestic one, which also exhibits few morals: the corruption of the armed forces we once loved and once dedicated our adult lives to the service of.
And with that realization, many of us are answering yet another call – one to continuing to defend our Constitution against those that would corrupt our military for their personal benefit. Some may feel that to label the cabal of the military institution as adversaries is extreme, I wholeheartedly disagree. For what would a foreign adversary aim to achieve now? To disenfranchise our talented military corps, to dissuade our youth from joining, to slowly whittle away at our defense apparatus so that it is unable to conduct the next future conflict? Is that not precisely what our own military is doing to itself – allowing abuses and assaults and rape to continue veritably unchecked, allowing service members and families to live in filth, promising members fair and timely justice but delivering neither, ostracizing and derailing those who would speak out against wrongdoings? And all the while, the leaders of our military never holding themselves to account…
This is the state of our military: achieving today what the China’s and Russia’s of the world would want to achieve tomorrow. And it is for this reason that this Foundation exists.
Happy Veterans Day to all who honorably serve.
vincit omnia veritas
-Ryan