As a service member, the Fourth of July has always been a fun holiday. Unlike Veterans Day and Memorial Day, which are somber events filled with ceremony and recalling sacrifice, the Fourth of July has evolved into a time of barbecue and fireworks and, even on military installations, very little discussion of history.
This Fourth of July is different for me. It is the first time I am celebrating Independence Day as a retired military officer after two decades of service. That alone has generated significant moments of reflection, from the feeling of pride and purpose as I watched fireworks for the first time as a military officer in uniform, to experiencing the Fourth of July while deployed to Kyrgyzstan. There were no celebrations that day; other than extra ice cream in the chow hall, our focus was the same, accomplishing the mission for one more day.
Those memories and that time of reflection are a part of the holiday for me this year, but for the first time I have started to reflect on the sacrifice of the men that signed the Declaration of Independence. They believed so strongly in the inalienable rights granted by their Creator that they were willing to hang for treason. We cannot truly understand that level of devotion and sacrifice in the United States today, but over the past three years I have been inspired and amazed at the commitment of many Americans and service members who were willing to sacrifice their careers and freedom for their religious faith, as well as the belief in the God-given rights of all individuals created in the image of God. The events of the last three years should be a stark reminder of the danger of any government untethered from a biblical foundation.
Politicians, bureaucrats, and public health “experts” in the federal government attempted to mandate that all Americans must inject an untested experimental medicine in order to keep a job, go to school, enter a store, or leave their homes. Members of the military were not exempt.
Over the past three years I have been inspired and amazed at the commitment of many Americans and service members who were willing to sacrifice their careers and freedom for their religious faith.
The legal and political battle to preserve our Constitution and religious freedom for military members for the last three years was very personal to me. As a military attorney and student of the Constitution, I firmly believed that mandating the vaccine was a violation of federal law, and that the denial of religious accommodations was a violation of basic constitutional and God-given rights. As a lawyer and an Air Force JAG, I was deeply troubled by the decision to prioritize political expediency over the law and the Constitution, but it was more than that. As a military officer, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, and I was watching an out-of-control executive branch ignore federal law. Military senior leaders were not merely complicit: they were willing to create significant damage to military readiness to carry out an unlawful order.
As a Lieutenant Colonel and military justice professional, I was passionately opposed to what was happening. But there was more.
As a Christian, I believe human life, all human life, is precious. I believe that life begins at fertilization and that we have an obligation to love our neighbors by fighting to preserve all human life. Based on these convictions, I was unable to receive a vaccine that was tested and developed on aborted fetal cell tissue. In addition, I do not believe that a government has the authority or ability to mandate medical decisions for individual citizens.
I firmly believed that mandating the vaccine was a violation of federal law, and that the denial of religious accommodations was a violation of basic constitutional and God-given rights.
So I took a stand. I was not only fighting to preserve freedom for military members; I was fighting to finish my military career with honor.
My own religious accommodation request was denied on July 3 of last year, just six months shy of twenty years of service and immediately before Independence Day. Six months from retirement eligibility, I spent Independence Day knowing that I had decided to disobey an order. My deadline to comply passed on July 10 and I expected to be notified of an official reprimand and separation from the United States Air Force. I was saved by a federal court judge issuing an injunction. Because the judicial branch acted, I was able to make it to retirement and leave the service voluntarily.
On this Fourth of July, I am spending time praising God for the wisdom he gave our Founding Fathers. Our nation is not and will never be perfect. We will always have to fight to preserve our God-given freedoms. But this is a Fourth of July on which my family and I are remembering that we are blessed by men who acknowledged that biblical truth is the precondition of freedom, as we seek to honor their wisdom and sacrifices by preserving the blessings of liberty.
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