He gave his last full measure.
As I started this blog, I was watching the remains of Officer Brian Sicknick being placed in state under the Capitol’s Rotunda. It is an honor that is given to few people. He earned it. He is the US Capitol Security Policeman who was murdered by insurrectionists when they stormed the Capitol on January 6th. A folded US flag, in a triangular wooden case, sat beside the wooden cube that contained his ashes. He had given his last full measure defending the Stars and Stripes and the democracy it represents.
It was a quiet tribute. At first, his family took their place before the bier that held his remains and flag. After a few moments they touched his remains and then silently walked away. Afterwards, one by one, dignitaries and his comrades in the Capitol Security Police paused before his ashes to pay respect and then soundlessly filed out.
The attack on the Capitol claimed five lives and in the following days two more when Capitol Police Officers committed suicide. At least 140 Capitol Police were hurt, some with debilitating injuries, including brain damage. The people who stormed the Capitol were prepared and intended to harm or kill police and legislators.
January 6th, 2021 was the resumption of our unfinished Civil War. Racism, left to fester since 1865, has mutated like the COVID virus into various lethal strains spread wide and far. It is time we must deal with it once and for all.
The Capitol attack is our Fort Sumter. It is a declaration of war, just as when insurrectionists attacked the United States fort in Charleston Bay. Just as the carnage of Bleeding Kansas foreshadowed the Civil War, so to does the brutality leading up to the 6th. There can be no mistaking that the killing of women’s physicians, attacks against Black Americans and other people of color, the murder of members of the LGBTQ community, the Border Patrol’s crimes against children and families, increasing anti-Semitism and ethnic violence, and the attacks on Black Lives Matter demonstrations, has been prelude to now.
Officer Sicknick is the first to fall in this conflict, defending the Union and our democracy. Sadly, he will not be the last. In an interview on MSNBC, Probulica investigative report A. C. Thompson stated that there will be a mass casualty attack this year. He should know. He has written a concise and frightening series of articles about the Nationalist menace in America. His most recent article, The Boogaloo Bois Have Guns, Criminal Records, and Military Training, is worth the read. We are in greater danger than most of us have imagined.
There is no place for insurrectionist sympathizers in our government, military, or police. We need to start with our elected officials, the people with the power to foment rebellion and obstruct the defense of our nation and democracy. To protect ourselves from sabotage and insider attacks it is necessary that we root out these threats and remove them from any form of power. Those who have acted must be tried and held fully accountable.
We are at this point because half measures and turning a blind eye does not work. We must unite as Americans to defeat this un-American threat. Courage, dedication, and perseverance are the watch words for now. As Benjamin Franklin said, “If we do not hang together, we will surely hang separately.”
I never thought the words I recited in grade school would come to mean so much.
“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.“
Civil War 2021 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.