Fact: Law Enforcement and Judges Cannot be Trusted: What About our Military?

Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart 

Let's look at what happened in America since 2017, and the truth about the darkest day in American history, January 6, 2021. 

First, let me tell you about how time is the greatest teacher of all. As I moved from childhood and became a young adult, I realized that I had been a child of white privilege. Therefore, I had always trusted law enforcement, the justice system, and our military leaders, virtually anyone older than me, or in a position of power. 

Education is not entirely the result of schools and books. I know that experience is often of greater value than formal education.  

I was sixteen in 1962 before I learned about the “two Americas.” This is not a phrase popular in 2024, but it remains a reality, like it or not. I left Parochial School in my junior year of high school. I enrolled in a public high school. I was now a student in an institution which had a diverse student body and offered additional freedom to think independently, and make decisions for myself.  

I was an athlete, and this gave me the opportunity to become friends with other young men who were not white. I admit that I was a bit shocked and a little in disbelief. Their young lives were very different from my own. A part of their education included how to conduct themselves when confronted by law enforcement, especially those who were white. 

I began to think about how little I knew about the young Black men on my basketball and baseball teams. I liked most of them, but had no reason to think their lives were different than my own. 

WHAT I LEARNED IN THE MILITARY 

I graduated high school in June of 1964, and enlisted in the USAF on September 11th. Growing up in Los Angeles I saw newsreels about racism in the south, but experiencing the situation in person was disturbing to say the least. 

Basic training was at Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Texas. During my eight weeks in Texas, I received a single pass to visit the downtown area. I went to the Alamo, big disappointment, and a few other areas. As I walked around, I noticed areas which were designed to separate blacks and whites. I didn’t think much about it at the time. 

Early in 1965, I was sent to school in Biloxi, Mississippi. Keesler AFB was an old base constructed at the beginning of WWII. 

When I was allowed a pass to leave the base, my eyes were opened. Some of the bars and restaurants had signs in the windows preventing members of the military from entry or service. I later learned that these restrictions were intended to prevent Black Airmen from receiving any of the services available in these white’s only establishments.  

LIFE AS A CIVILIAN 

When I enlisted in the USAF, recruiters were receiving bonuses. The draft was still a reality. My recruiter failed to place in my record the fact that I suffered from extreme pain when I experienced a migraine headache. I was eventually discharged on Mar 9, 1965. 

Back in “the real world,” I worked at various jobs. I met new friends and had new experiences.  

The war in Southeast Asia continued to escalate. To this day I have failed to find a legitimate reason why our nation’s young men were sent halfway around the world to die. The only reason I found in the last sixty years is to increase the wealth of the men and women who were invested in the military industrial complex. 

In August of 1965, in protest against the arrest of a young Black man for driving while intoxicated, riots began in the Watts community, an area inhabited by mostly Black families. 

The press and television news failed to help the city understand what caused the violence which lasted for six days until the National Guard was called in to control the area. 

I learned later from a young man I worked with that this situation had been simmering under the surface for decades. Police brutality and harassment had been a problem for decades. In August, the hottest month in Los Angeles, tempers boiled over. 

A similar situation happened in 1991 after I had moved twice, eventually to the Reno, Nevada area.  

A Black man by the name of Rodney King was pulled from his car and beaten severely while lying on the ground. Several officers were filmed taking turns hitting him with their night sticks. The result was rioting and looting for days. 

BLACK LIVES MATTER 

With an increase in physical abuse, harassment, and even deadly shootings by law enforcement against Black Americans, an organization called “Black Lives Matter” was formed nationally in 2014. Because law enforcement agencies denied that pervasive racism was a problem within their ranks, BLM was created to increase public awareness of a growing travesty in America. 

Finally, on the darkest day in history, when a sitting president attempted a coup to overthrow our government, we watched leaders of Neo-Nazi movements encourage their members to attack the Capitol Building at the demand of Donald Trump. 

When the arrests began a sad and disturbing fact was revealed. Within the vile attack on January 6, 2021 were members of retired and active law enforcement agencies and our military forces. Also in attendance when Trump made his speech and ordered the insurrection was the wife of a Supreme Court justice. 

All of these men and women shared one thing in common, a desire to “make America white again.” 

Op-ed by James Turnage 

Find my novels on Amazon