Copyright Salt Lake City Deseret News
Christmas Day 1973 found my family at my grandparents’ house in Fullerton, California. Of the gifts I received that morning, there is but one still among my keepsakes today — an American flag. My grandmother had requested the flag through her congressional representative, and it had been flown over the U.S. Capitol before it was boxed up and presented to me. I have treasured those colors since then, honoring and displaying them on holidays and teaching my children to do the same. In the meantime, I served from 1988 to 2014 in the U.S. Army and Utah National Guard and deployed twice in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. When I enlisted, I took an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” In Article II, Section 2, the Constitution specifies that “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.” During my years in uniform, my oath bound me to follow the direction of the five U.S. presidents I served under, even the ones I did not vote for. In my military studies I learned an important lesson from theorist Carl von Clausewitz that “war is a continuation of politics by other means.” Service members are instruments of policy, meaning that they themselves do not decide to deploy or to use force; those decisions rest constitutionally with the civilian elected leaders of our nation. As an example, two days after his first inauguration in 2009, President Barack Obama, under Executive Order 13492, ordered the closure of the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, within 12 months. I took a keen interest in this decision because I had served there as a public affairs officer during my first deployment. Of course, the U.S. military is perfectly capable of the logistics to transport detainees anywhere in the world in a matter of days. But determining where to send them was a diplomatic issue that then-President Obama and his successors have yet to solve, and to this day the detention facility at Guantánamo remains open. I retired from the military more than a decade ago, but in a real way I still feel bound by that oath as director of communication for the Center for Constitutional Studies at Utah Valley University, a nonpartisan, academic institute that promotes the instruction, study and research of constitutionalism. Having raised and lowered the colors many times and worn them on my right shoulder during my military service, the flag and the uniform have become for me visible symbols of freedom, sacrifice and unity under the document that formally forged our nation — the U.S. Constitution. Americans are a diverse lot, and over the years we have debated and disagreed about politics, policies and presidents. “But despite all these differences, there must be a common core,” wrote Akhil Reed Amar in “The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation.” “E Pluribus Unum. The United States Constitution and its history are what We (with a capital W) have in common, and if we don’t like the document as is, We can amend it.” My grandmother’s flag gift has now seen 52 Fourths of July, Memorial Days, Flag Days and Veterans Days. It is a veteran in its own right, now faded and showing signs of wear. I no longer display it outside, given its precarious condition. And it might be tempting to dispose of it, but I keep it because of who handed it down to me and because of the ideals it represents. Can we see our Constitution in the same way? While some call for a new foundational fabric, saying the one we have in place is worn out and threadbare, Benjamin Franklin reminded us in 1787 that we have “a republic, if [we] can keep it.” What the Founders handed to us then outlines a structure and process now for We the People to govern ourselves and amend and adjust our system as needed, if we find ways to come together. On this Veterans Day, let us remember that our military members, living their oath — and many dying by it — to “support and defend the Constitution,” helped make it possible for us to disagree peacefully and find the way forward unitedly under the one thing that all Americans have in common, the Constitution of the United States.
