“I basically said ‘Americans are dying no matter the color of their skin. Americans are dying.’ I also said ‘courage is what it takes to stand up and fight, not kneel or raise the fist during the National Anthem.’ I got a lot of backlash.
The comment I saw the most was, ‘How can you speak about courage and stand up and fight when you got a bad conduct discharge from the United States Marine Corps. I’d like to address that first off. That was 18 years ago. I was 18 years old, went straight into the United States Marine Corps bootcamp out in San Diego, California. I graduated bootcamp with a meritorious promotion, went on tot he school of infantry where I was a squad leader and a guide. When I went to the fleet, and I’m not here to talk about all the negative things I saw that made me come to this realization, but there were things that I wasn’t happy seeing and wasn’t proud being a part of. What I realized was, I didn’t have the courage to die for my country.
But, knowing that about myself, I saw in many of the other men and women that I was down there with, young men and women, you could see in their eyes that they were of that patriotic spirit where they would put their life on the line for this country. That’s courage right there. Now here we are 18 years later and a lot of these men and women served their country well. Some of them might have lost their lives. Some of them might have come home paralyzed from the waist down, the neck down, amputees, unable to make love to their spouses. Unable to go swimming with their children, unable to walk the dog or take their kids to the park. Depression, different types of mental illness from all the stress they went through. That’s sacrifice right there and the sacrifice that their families gave for them to either die or be brutally hurt for their country, that’s why I think you should stand up for the flag.
Taking a knee, listen, everyone has their right to their opinion and I do believe that. I respect everybody else’s opinion. And all these comments I read, I went through them and a few of them I kind of laughed at, but nonetheless, they’re opinions. That’s my stance.”