Hangin’ with War Department

by Bill Doughty

United States Senators and Representatives plan to conduct hearings to investigate an attack of Sept. 2 on a suspected drug boat in the Caribbean as a potential war crime or murder. 

Adm. Bradley

Navy’s SEAL Team 6 reportedly conducted the “double-tap” attack allegedly as ordered by “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth. Witnesses claim Hegseth said, “Kill them all.”

Hegseth initially said the report was “fabricated,” but then the White House acknowledged there was indeed a second strike on the boat even though there were survivors clinging to the shipwreck.

This week Hegseth admitted there was a second strike but denied giving the order, instead attributing the decision to Admiral “Mitch” Bradley.

More about that in a moment…

Unconstitutional Behavior

Last month some members of Congress, including Sen. Mark Kelly, issued a video aimed at uniformed military personnel. reminding them of their oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. They urged service members to not follow illegal and unconstitutional orders.

In response, President Trump said that Kelly and the other Democratic lawmakers in the video “should be in jail right now.” He called the senators’ statement “seditious behavior at the highest level” and for an example to be set. “Their words cannot be allowed to stand – We won’t have a Country anymore!!! punishable by DEATH!”

It wasn’t the first time that the commander in chief called for violence against his adversaries. He proclaimed to a crowd years ago, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?”

On a presidential debate stage in 2016 Trump told moderator FOX News’s Bret Baier that he could get away with issuing orders to torture people. Baier replied that several high-ranking military and intelligence officials believed that rank-and-file service members would refuse to commit war crimes as illegal orders; Trump replied, "They won't refuse. They're not going to refuse me. Believe me.”

After Trump's comments about Senator Kelly and the other members of Congress, the senators and representatives and their families have received numerous death threats.

In at least one press conference and many media interviews, Kelly has been outspoken in defending his position: reminding service members of their duty to follow only legal orders.

‘Follow the Law’

One of Kelly's earliest interviews was with MS NOW political talkshow host Rachel Maddow on Monday, Nov. 24.

“I said something that was pretty simple and non-controversial,” Kelly told Maddow, “that members of the military should follow the law. And in response to that, Donald Trump said I should be executed, I should be hanged, I should be prosecuted, even said something like, ‘Go get them.’”

“I think it says more about him than it does about me. He doesn’t want accountability, but Rachel I’m not going to be silenced. I’m not going to be intimidated,” he added.

Kelly cited Trump’s pronouncement at the 2016 debate that the military “won’t refuse” even his illegal orders. Kelly also noted Trump’s threat to invoke the Insurrection Act and send more troops into American cities as training against U.S. citizens. And, Kelly mentioned Trump’s desire to have the military fire upon protesters in Washington D.C. in 2020.

Kelly said, “I spent 25 years in the United States Navy. I flew 39 combat missions over Iraq and Kuwait. Let me start by saying I never questioned any order, and you’re required to follow all legal orders. You’re also required not to follow illegal ones.”

“I don’t think there’s anything more patriotic than to stand up for the Constitution, and right here, right now, the President clearly is not doing that,” Kelly added.

“The whole thing’s almost comical," Kelly said. "We basically recited the Uniformed Code of Military Justice, and they’re (Trump and Hegseth) saying that’s in violation of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice. It’s absurd.”

Maddow inquired, “I have to ask you at a human level, Senator, you and your family have dealt with more than your fair share of sacrifice for this country and trial and tribulation … Even though I hear you when you say you’re not intimidated … It’s tough to ask what kind of impact is this having on you and your family?”

“Rachel, I’ve had a missile blow up next to my airplane,” Kelly replied. “I’ve been … nearly shot down multiple times. I’ve flown a rocket ship into space four times built by the lowest bidder. And my wife, Gabby Giffords, meeting with her constituents, shot in the head. Six people killed around her. A horrific thing. She spent six months in the hospital. We know what political violence is.  And we know what causes it, too. Y’know, The statements that Donald Trump made… incites other people. He’s got millions of supporters. People listen to what he says more so than any other person in the country. And he should be careful with his words,” Kelly said.

“But I’m not going to be silenced here.”

Kelly added: “If this is meant to intimidate me and other members of Congress from doing our jobs and holding this administration accountable, it won’t work. I’ve given too much to this country to be silenced by bullies who care more about their own power than protecting the Constitution.”

‘Not a Serious Person’

Hegseth

U.S. defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, argues that the senators' and representatives' video at the center of the controversy was “despicable, reckless, and false.”

Kelly and the others, Hegseth claims, is “Encouraging our warriors to ignore the orders of their commanders undermines every aspect of ‘good order and discipline.’” 

Hegseth claims Kelly has committed a potentially unlawful act. He threatens to recall the retired Navy captain to active duty so he can hold him accountable. He also mocked his uniform and rows of ribbons for medals Kelly earned.

Kelly meantime has continued to speak out after revelation of the double-tap controversy. He has spoken out in support of Admiral Bradley. And he berated Hegseth for not taking responsibility for his actions in the potential warcrime of Sept. 2.

In the wake of outrage over the Washington Post story, Hegseth posted or reposted a meme on social media picturing Franklin the Turtle hanging from a military helicopter and firing rocket-propelled grenades at drug-running boats. The Canadian children’s book publisher of Franklin the Turtle, Kids Can Press, denounced the unauthorized use of their peace-loving character that "stands for kindness, empathy, and inclusivity."

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) reacted to Hegseth’s Franklin the Turtle meme this way: ”He’s in the national command authority for nuclear weapons, and last night he's putting out on the internet turtles with rocket-propelled grenades killing people. I mean, have you seen this? This is the Secretary of Defense. This is not a serious person.”

Hegseth, himself, consistently says he doesn’t take military legal advice seriously.

From an earlier Navy Reads review of Pete Hegseth’s quasi-memoir: Hegseth “fired numerous JAG officers, IGs (Inspectors General), and advisors who don’t have his beliefs or who don’t give him the advice he wants.” Hegseth writes, “Aren’t we just better off winning our wars according to our own rules?” He questioned following the Geneva Conventions and other international treaties and agreements.

In Hegseth’s book, he recalls telling his platoon in Iraq. to ignore the guidance of JAG officers, who he referred to as “jag-offs.”

Legal guidance had warned about not firing upon non-threatening potential adversaries, but Hegseth wrote, “After this briefing, I pulled my platoon together… ‘Men, if you see an enemy who you believe is a threat, you engage and destroy the threat. That’s a bullshit rule that’s going to get people killed. And I will have your back –– just like our commander.’”

Adm. Holsey

Several weeks after the Sept. 2 killing of the drug runners, Hegseth ordered the military’s most senior officers and enlisted personnel to report before him at Quantico where he told them they would no longer be constrained by legal advice of the JAGs “We also don't fight with stupid rules of engagement,” Hegseth said.

“We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement, just common sense, maximum lethality and authority for warfighters.”

Notably, Admiral Alvin Holsey, then-commander of U.S. Southern Command, did not attend.

Two weeks later, Hegseth announced Holsey would retire early, just one year into his three-year tour. The New York Times reported that Holsey opposed attacking drug-running boats in the Caribbean.

Hegseth promised, “We let our leaders fight their formations and then we have their back.”

Will he actually “have their back”?

This week Hegseth and the White House claimed that Adm. Bradley gave the order for the second strike on Sept. 2.

What’s Being Signaled?

So far the Defense Secretary has faced no accountability for “Signalgate,” in which he texted active attack plans against Yemen to a reporter and separately to family members.

This week, in fact, the Pentagon's watchdog found that Hegseth put U.S. personnel and mission in danger when he communicated the “Secret” attack plans on a personal phone via an encrypted but nonsecure Signal chat group, according to reports.

Democrats and independents in Congress are calling for hearings. Even some republican lawmakers are publicly declaring they are no longer hanging with Hegseth.

If congressional hearings determine culpability for the unconstitutional killings in the Caribbean, will Hegseth and/or Trump face accountability for what experts call either murder or a warcrime –– or both?

Or will Hegseth and Trump literally “have the backs” of military leaders as they push them toward symbolic gallows?

Perhaps Congress will recalibrate the Pentagon, prevent a potential war with Venezuela, turn away from kinetic tactics against civilians, and return to supporting Coast Guard at-sea actions against drug runners.

Then, drug traffickers will be held legally accountable as well.

U.S. Navy crew members from USS Curts offload 12 tons of cocaine in Key West, FL Nov. 5 2004, from the largest drug bust in United States Coast Guard history. (USCG photo by PA3 Stacy Burns)

Race, U.S. Military & Insurrection Act

Review by Bill Doughty

The history of the United States Insurrection Act is mirrored in black and white.

Congress created the Act to deal with threat of slave rebellions. Then, President Ulysses S. Grant used the act to quell the KKK and other attacks on freed blacks during Reconstruction. 

In 1856 President Franklin Pierce used the Insurrection Act to disperse lawbreakers in Kansas at the request of territorial governor Andrew Reeder. Violent agitators from Missouri crossed state lines to intimidate Kansas residents into voting for slavery to be authorized within the state, afraid they would lose their “property” to a neighbor free state.

LBJ called up the Act to defend black Americans during the civil rights movement against white supremacists and segregationists. A generation later, George H. W. Bush invoked the Act when some African Americans protested and rioted in the wake of the police beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles in 1992.

Yet, the Insurrection Act was not invoked against white anti-democratic rioters during an actual insurrection attempt at the very heart of government.

As lawyer and author Hawa Allan shows in “Insurrection: rebellion, civil rights, and the paradoxical state of Black citizenship” (W.W. Norton, 2022) President Trump chose to not call for invocation of the Act on January 6, 2021 when his supporters attacked the Capitol in an attempted coup.

Instead of naming J6 rioters “insurrectionists,” including those who violently attacked police and security officers, Trump pardoned, praised as patriots, and even paid some of them with taxpayer money. 

Allen writes, “after a mostly white mob stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and threatened to disrupt the Electoral College certification of the presidential election, beating a Capitol Police officer in its midst, some Republican spokesmen were loath to call its participants 'insurrectionists.' Donald Trump himself characterized the Capitol rioters as posing 'zero threat, right from the start,' and went on to state that 'some of them went in, and they are hugging and kissing the police and the guards,' and that they were waved in and out of the Capitol by said police.”

“So, what's in a name? An ‘insurrectionist,’ by definition, is someone who has engaged in an act or instance of revolting against a civil authority or an established government. However, many of those participating in the riots on that fateful January 6 considered themselves to be ‘patriots,’ by definition vigorously supporting their country and prepared to defend it against enemies and detractors. Among such rioters, as indicated by the subsequent indictments, were members of the Oath Keepers; some of them reportedly directed fellow Capitol infiltrators toward the Senate wing in order to stop the certification of the presidential election.”

Allen explains:

“It's true that the Insurrection Act does not need to be invoked by the president in order to authorize federal military intervention in the District of Columbia, which lacks statehood. However, as commander in chief of the D.C. National Guard, the president and his administration could have directed that this be done once riots were sparked at the Capitol. Although local commanders of the National Guard are invested with the limited authority to take immediate military action in certain emergency situations where there is not sufficient time to obtain the requisite approvals, in the case of the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally the Pentagon had restricted the authority of the D.C. National Guard commander before the riot, requiring higher-level sign-off in order to take such immediate action.”

Deviating Military Power

Race was again in the forefront when President Trump wanted to use the Insurrection Act during his first term, even asking then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Milley and Defense Secretary Esper to consider having the military fire upon protesters.

“Trump's threatened invocation of the Insurrection Act during the George Floyd protests incited an uproar among numerous commentators who decried the federal government's use of military power against its ‘own people.’ The use of federal troops as a civilian police force, according to many commentators at the time, is an unwarranted trespass on the rights and freedoms of American citizens and contravenes the values upon which the United States was founded.”

Trump continues to threaten to call up the Insurrection Act and activate the military against U.S. civilians who oppose him and protest against his policies. In 2025 he has deployed armed forces in American cities as he moves closer to what historians warn would authoritarian rule, away from states’ rights federalism and toward autocracy.

This week U.S. senators and representatives implored the military: “Don’t give up the ship” and to follow their oath to the Constitution in upholding the rule of law. They called for military service members to follow only legal orders, not illegal ones. In a social media post, Trump texted “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” He also re-posted comments calling for the veterans to be punished with death, including hanging. Later he attempted to downplay his actions.

Senator Mark Kelly, Navy Captain (ret.)

It is said to be the first time, at least in modern times, that a president explicitly incited violence against members of Congress. In the days following Trump’s text, veterans such as Senator Mark Kelly announced they have received death threats from Trump supporters.

Trump’s words against the senators and representatives recalled explicit and implicit threats to deploy the military against the president’s opponents and U.S. citizens in general, including as conceived in the “Navy SEAL Team 6 assassination theory” presented in the Supreme Court ––as well as via the Insurrection Act.

“It is true that the military power set forth in the Insurrection Act is an extraordinary exception from the normal state of federal affairs,” Allen writes.

“The power, among other things, upends the conventions of federalism, in line with which domestic deployments of the ‘militia' — or the modern-day National Guard –– are authorized by the state governor. This power also represents a significant departure from the constitutional aversion to standing armies, which some framers feared would result in the arbitrary use of force against civilians and thereby re-create the same sort of authoritarian menace, in the form of the British Army, that American revolutionaries had just sought to free themselves from. The Insurrection Act, then, is both an exception and a rule—it represents a radical deviation from the principles of federalism and aversion to using military forces to police civilians, while authorizing a purportedly necessary use of federal military power to restore ‘law and order’ amid a domestic crisis.”

Words in a Mirror

Allen contends that the term “insurrection” is ill-defined, leaving the power of interpretation to the president, who may see protests and crises through a racial lens or “mirror.”

“An insurrection, under the Act, is a definitional vacuum waiting to be filled by the executive. The incidents taken to warrant domestic federal military intervention betray just as much, if not more, about the predilections of those wielding power as they do about the threatening nature of such events. From Nat Turner's rebellion to violent clashes over slavery in ‘Bleeding Kansas’ to white paramilitary resistance during Radical Reconstruction to the desegregation of public schools in Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi to the Los Angeles ‘riots’ in 1992, the events across history that have been interpreted to warrant the domestic deployment of federal troops under the Insurrection Act reveal a pattern: the prevailing invocation of the Act, on the one hand, to suppress revolts against the slave system and so-called race riots, and, on the other, to enforce the civil rights of African Americans. So, although what constitutes an insurrection is technically undefined in the text of the Act itself, the term has been defined in practice through its historical application. What has been interpreted to constitute an insurrection is a mirror reflecting the ongoing and often bloody battle to fully incorporate black Americans into the citizenry of the United States —a struggle that, in this light, appears more like an open-ended civil war than a history of ‘progress.’”

Again, race plays a role in how and when the Act is invoked –– and by who is in office.

“An ‘insurrection,’ however, is also defined by omission. Where the Trump administration, for example, threatened to invoke the Act in response to nationwide demonstrations against police brutality, the same inclination was nonexistent in response to, say, deadly protests in Charlottesville, North Carolina, by white nationalists, or to the storming of the Michigan state capitol by armed mostly white men protesting ongoing COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. Although the Insurrection Act does not need to be invoked for the president to deploy the D.C.

National Guard or federal troops within the District of Columbia, the absence of any military presence during the riots –– or, as commentators called it, the ‘insurrection’ —at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, was certainly glaring. As commander in chief of the D.C. National Guard, it is clear that Trump and his administration could have authorized its deployment-that is, if they actually interpreted the riot to be a threat to law and order.”

R.E. Lee monument

Allen notes the “scant use of force” used by police in incidents brought on by armed and mostly white demonstrators not only on J6, but also in Lansing, MI and Charlottesville, VA, compared with excessive use of force against unarmed protesters who are not white.

“One obvious parallel involves the 2017 rally held in Charlottesville, Virginia, to oppose the proposed removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, which drew counterprotesters who gathered to oppose the many white nationalists and neo-Nazis parading on that day. Refusing to denounce the white nationalist contingent at the rally, Trump remarked that there were "very fine people on both sides." Of course, it was at this rally that a white nationalist drove his car into a group of counterprotesters, killing a young activist named Heather Heyer. The violent nature of the rally attendees, however, was not limited to this deadly attack.”

The mirror of unequal treatment via the Insurrection Act shines a light on other signs of growing white supremacy in and out of the military: renaming bases after actual seditionists of the Confederacy, reinstalling monuments to Confederates, downplaying the history of slavery, and removing blacks and women from top leadership positions in the military. These are just some of the obvious examples.

Andrew Young ‘An Easy Burden’

Review by Bill Doughty

He was a lieutenant to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In fact, he was by his side not only in life but also at King’s death at the hands of an assassin.

Andrew Young, now in his 90s, has had many titles in his lifetime: UN Ambassador, Mayor of Atlanta, Congressional Representative, Co-chair of Olympic Games, Executive Director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and ordained minister of the United Church of Christ. His other titles include: civil rights leader, peacemaker, family man, and author.

Young’s “An Easy Burden: The Civil Rights Movement and the Transformation of America” (HarperCollins, 1996) is as relevant today as it was when written nearly 30 years ago.

Need a jolt of hope? This is a good book filled with optimism in the face of pessimism, love in a time of hate, and unity despite efforts at creating division and inequality.

Andrew Young shows how the American civil rights movement arose largely as a result of World War II and the resultant Marshall Plan. The military provided proof and a blueprint for the success of diversity, inclusion, meritocracy, and equality.

Young’s perspective is rooted in a post-colonial world and his religious faith and commitment to nonviolence.

“There were many who made the American civil rights movement possible: men and women, preachers and laypeople, students and workers, young and old. But in the 1960s, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the organization I was involved with during the civil rights movement, was largely made up of thirtyish, Southern-born, Negro preachers. We were children of the New Deal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. We spent our adolescence enjoying the rise of the United States as a defender of liberty and democracy in World War I. Our high school and university life was defined and colored by the social responsibility of the Marshall Plan, a sense of world community signaled by the founding of the United Nations and, yes, the successful liberation of India from British colonialism— without violence.”

Despite growing up in a segregated and racist South, Young and his compatriots committed themselves to finding the “better angels of our nature,” as Lincoln called for.

Young writes, “The former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass described the effort to end slavery as a struggle to save "black men's bodies and white men's souls." It was in this tradition that the preachers who founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference decided its mission was "to redeem the soul of America."

“That soul we saw less in America's actions than in its ideals: freedom, equality, justice. While we endured segregation, we knew that America had shed the blood of hundreds of thousands of its sons and daughters in a war that ended slavery. We knew that America had risen up out of the depths of a Great Depression to defeat fascism. We had cheered the exploits of Dorie Miller and the Tuskegee Airmen and other colored soldiers who refused to let racial segregation prevent them from offering their lives for freedom and for America, and we were inspired by their example. Dorie Miller was told he could only be a cook's helper, but he dared to believe he could shoot down enemy aircraft [at Pearl Harbor]. The Tuskegee Airmen dared to believe black men could fly. 

We were thought to be naive, but in truth we were visionary. We dared to believe that America could be healed of the gangrene of racism. We saw America as we could become, not just as we were.

We believed that people could change, because we were constantly aware of how far we had come, personally. But most of all, we believed that a free society was constantly changing and that we could influence those changes to accommodate the needs and aspirations of all of our citizens, and that race, creed, gender, and national origin could be strengths rather than problems.

We began with the limited goal of ending racial segregation. But we came to understand segregation as just one aspect of the barrier confronting black Americans in American society.

The March on Washington became a march for jobs and freedom, because in a nation based on free enterprise, access to jobs and money are an essential component of freedom. We came to see the war in Vietnam as a symbol of the destructive role America was playing in suppressing the cause of freedom for people of color not just at home, but around the world.

As America made the world safe for democracy, we had to make America's democracy safe for the world.

Racism, war, and poverty were anchors dragging on our society, preventing us from reaching our full potential, as if anchors from a nineteenth-century sailing ship had been attached to the space shuttle. We accepted the challenges of detaching those anchors.

We knew it was a burden, but we believed it was an easy burden in a country as great as ours. We believed that God didn't give anyone more burden than he or she had the strength to bear. Our faith made our burdens light, because we never carried them alone. Our understanding and clarity of vision was a blessing, and I was taught that God requires us to use the gifts that we have been given. Racism, war, and poverty were heavy burdens, to challenge injustice was an easy burden.

We possessed a fundamental faith in democracy and free enterprise. We learned to address the nation through a free press; we made our claims on the economy by word and deed. We believed in our American heritage-a great people in a great nation that was ready to lead humankind in a new way of thinking and working. We believed in a future that we would help to create from our faith in spite of very real fears. Martin expressed it for all of us when he constantly reminded us that ‘the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’"

In protests and marches for freedom, against poverty, and “against fear,” Young lived and preached a code of nonviolence as learned from MLK who learned it from Ghandi.

Young’s view is one with a wide-aperture –– focused on the whole world and also into the future. And his love for America as well as his hope and optimism are at the center.

“America is so important to the world at this moment in history as we seek a new vision for our world. As I travel around the globe, I am reminded that the heads of state and people of nearly every country look to America for leadership. Yet, the poverty in our midst undermines our will and ability to respond to the call to global leadership and to meet the challenge of global poverty and environmental degradation—a far greater threat to future generations than even the Cold War. When I served as United States Ambassador to the United Nations, I became aware of the intense appreciation that the Japanese delegation had for the U.S. role in rebuilding Japan after World War II. That experience led many Japanese businessmen to advocate a global fund for strategic infrastructure projects that would improve the environment, facilitate sustainable development, and generate jobs. They identified fifty such strategic projects, including the English Channel Tunnel (which the British built themselves), a natural gas pipeline across Africa from the Nigerian oil fields to the Mediterranean, and a sea level canal through Nicaragua. Without enthusiastic backing from the United States, a new global infrastructure fund could not move past the visioning stage, yet no nation would benefit more from such projects than the United States. For example, the practical benefits of a canal across Nicaragua to accommodate modern supertankers are at least twofold: given the cost and dangers associated with the long voyage around South America from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the canal would pay for itself in short order. Moreover, a canal under international governance would provide the basis for long-term economic growth and resulting political stability for U.S. neighbors and trading partners in Central America.

Investing in development in Central America would produce far better results in reversing the immigration flow than the punitive measures presently finding political favor.

This is the kind of forward thinking that is required from American leadership today: investing in the future to solve problems and prevent problems. How much better to build a canal than to build a wall. How much more effective to support the creation of jobs in their own regions for workers who presently risk life and limb in pursuit of a better life in the United States, rather than to put forward yet another plan for making illegal immigrants' lives only more miserable once they're here. Our nation's prosperity rests on the vision of leaders who invested in and built bridges, roads, canals, communication networks, and national parks. These are the things that make for peace.

In an expanding economy people are too busy making money and accumulating material goods to fight over ancient prejudices.

Had there been growth rather than recession in Europe when Bosnia and Serbia became independent of the former Yugoslavia, I doubt we would have seen the kind of bitter carnage that we have witnessed in that region of the world. The frustration that erupted in riots in South Central Los Angeles were rooted as much in the steady withdrawal of jobs and resources from that community as in the tragic beating of Rodney King.

Our own budget deficit has become the new excuse for ignoring growing problems in our midst and shirking our global responsibilities. But America does not have the luxury of attempting to shrink its way out of deficits; we only enlarge our problems when we withdraw resources from cities, schools, rural communities, infrastructure, parks, health care, and environmental protection. We undermine the integrity and vitality of our communities and we trigger dangerous recessions that breed conflict and violence. Surely responsible and dedicated Americans of all races can, based on the dictates of our minds as well as our hearts, pull together to meet the present challenge of poverty in all its complex manifestations both at home and

I am considerably older than I was in 1961, and I hope I'm wiser and certainly much more experienced after having moved through the Congress, the United Nations, the city of Atlanta, and the private sector. I have yet to find a reason to question or doubt the faith that we had in America then. Everything I know now convinces me that the struggle to eliminate racism, war, and poverty is a burden, but in America, with all the freedom and opportunity afforded us under our Constitution, in the most productive society in human history, it is an easy burden if we undertake it together.”

For much more about Andrew Young, readers may want to watch Rachel Maddow’s new film: “Dirty Work.” From the MSNBC website: “This gripping documentary reveals the untold story of Andrew Young — a behind-the-scenes force of the Civil Rights Movement and a quiet giant of international diplomacy. A master negotiator, strategist, and bridge-builder, Young was the man who did the essential, often thankless ‘dirty work’ that changed history, operating in the shadows while others stood in the spotlight.” Young considers the “dirty work” he did as “an easy burden.

Andrew Young celebrates black history with First Army, Fort Gillem, Georgia, in 2009 (Gayle Johnson, First Army Public Affairs Office)