Kneel. Pray. Win. We Have Orders from General George Washington.

I was Told What to Do or Face Dictatorship, so I Hit the Harris-Walz Campaign Trail.

The morning before I left on a weeklong bus tour of the southern states for National Security Leaders for America (NSL4A), I visited my late wife at Washington Crossing National Cemetery. Even though I go quite regularly, there was something special about this trip. I would share a bus from Florida, Georgia, to North Carolina with admirals, generals, and ambassadors. NSL4A had been a non-partisan advocacy group of high-ranking government policymakers from the defense, intelligence, and State Department. But this year was different.

Retired U.S. Navy Mike Smith had decided the members of NSL4A had seen enough. They believed what Donald Trump promised. Should he win, Trump was going to use the military, the government, and intelligence agencies to attack American citizens, dismantle the remaining guardrails of democracy, and turn America into a dictatorship.  One man would rule America … the very wish of a British monarch a two centurys and a half before.

That is when the group endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris and Tim Waltz. But they needed at least one additional senior enlisted national security expert on the road … that was me.

Surprisingly, choosing to actively participate in the campaign rather than be the social media influencer led me to a spiritual moment I hope all of you will take into your heart.

First, let me tell you, I hate being a widower. Losing my wife was the most painful experience of my life. My parents lived long and fruitful lives, and we were blessed to have never lost a child. But watching my wife slowly fade away from ovarian cancer was a brutal lesson.  We buried her in Washington Crossing National Cemetery near the spot where General George Washington took his men on Christmas Eve 1776 and changed the course of the war with a daring Christmas attack on the British.  She will forever be 57 years old.

I was honored that my nation had designated this sacred ground as my final resting place.  Yet it would be my beloved wife who would precede me.  She had a full military funeral as befitting a Navy wife.  Now, five years past, she remains at rest in our promised piece of the Bucks County countryside, waiting patiently for me. 

On my way to the airport, I stopped briefly to commune with her. I loved going to Washington Crossing at dawn when the sunrise turned the tombstones orange and pink. I am always filled with hope when I leave… except this time. 

The groundskeeping staff there know who I am.  I am the guy who hugs the white stone as if his wife stood before him.  I must cut a sad spectacle, talking to, kissing, and hugging the granite, but it always feels right.  I did not have time to bring flowers, but I brought myself and was sure that would be enough for her.  We always talk … it is usually a one-way conversation, but her responses sometimes reach me in my dreams. 

I told her the nation was in trouble and did not know what would come.  I asked her for help.  I joked that anyone she could talk to in heaven should feel free to intervene and rapido.  I laughed at the image of her asking God to ensure the success of an election, but this time, it was not a joke.  When I leave her, I am usually too bereaved to do anything but cry in the car until I compose myself.  But this time, I was moved by an unexplainable force to walk over to the statue of General George Washington. 

The Washington statue graces the north side of the beautiful green grounds. He is a dark gray figure, literally larger than life. As he was the night before his dangerous gamble, on a freezing Christmas night, the General is on one knee in perpetual silent prayer. His hands are tightly clasped together in deep reverence to God, and his head is bowed. This giant man was positioned by the designers to face and to pray over the graves of those who gave their lives to the nation. It is a humbling sight to behold.

Suddenly overwhelmed with emotion, I was moved to pray alongside him. 

It should be noted that I’ve never really been one to pray. Not once in Lebanon, nor Iraq, Not in Afghanistan, Libya, or even at the most fretful times in Ukraine when artillery was falling like rain for hours.  It just never occurred to me it could actually work.  Speaking to my wife was not a prayer.  It was a spiritual discussion.  But now, I needed to beg for something greater than anything in my past. I felt the need to ask the universe, or God, if that’s what it is known by, for a critical intercession.  I needed help for the salvation of my country.

I, too, took one knee, clasped my hands, stared at the spurs on Washington’s boot, and then fervently prayed that this nation remove itself from the danger it finds itself in. 

It is ironic that George Washington, the president who relinquished power when everyone wanted him to remain, should be the figure I prayed with. Washington appealed to heaven for the success of his revolutionary war endeavors and that the new nation he served should win its struggle against the combined worldly power of a single man: King George the Third. 

Now, two and half centuries later, I found myself praying that the common sense and patriotism of the United States citizens would heed and embrace Washington's wishes and reject another mad king. 

I am an originalist patriot of the American experiment. I was born in the Philadelphia Naval Hospital, heir to a family legacy composed of at least eight generations of black men and women who served in the Army and Navy. We all loved America and took pride in being American, no matter how imperfect. 

What we did not do was spend our every waking moment to destroy 248 years of freedom and liberty and call it patriotism.  Yet here I was, praying with General George Washington that the dream of the American Republic should prevail over the blind allegiance millions of Americans have to a narcissistic fascist. 

More ironic was that this very cemetery was opened by Donald Trump’s former Chief of Staff, General John F. Kelly, when he served in the White House.  The same officer who recently publicly called Trump a fascist and confirmed that he thought dead service members were “Suckers” and “Losers”. 

It should not be possible that Trump had a quarter of the American electorate supporting his crusade to become the first American King. 

Yet here we are.

America may be in its last week as a democratic Republic.  The thought moved me to a flow of tears almost as deep and profound as those I wept when we were attacked on 9/11.

I do not relish remembering the feeling of grief I felt outside the burning Pentagon on the evening after the attacks, but I felt the familiar penumbra of it creep into my psyche.  You may feel it, too. 

I fear a loss to Trump in this election will tear the very fabric of my being should America end and become a white supremacist dictatorship.  I cannot fathom the joyfulness of people turned devils who will dance on the grave of this great nation and turn it into a dictatorship whose first job would be to destroy centuries of progress, subjugate women, and spark a civil war.  Then the narcissist will order the army as a Gestapo to round up and deport 20 million people while arresting American political opponents ... myself included.  

And so, I understood the orders wordlessly transmitted to me from General Washington: Stand up, man … and Fight. 

Fight … this pestilence that eats at the stitches of the American flag.  

Fight … to rid yourself of the disgust of the possibility that in a week, half of the electorate could happily cast off the words “The United States” and embrace a racist, fascist, Divided Whited States.

For one horrible second, I thought about my firearms. Should I prepare to fight in a gun battle to defend the true patriots? Should I assume civil war would come to my beloved streets of Philadelphia? Will we again have to fight for our liberty and freedom by force of arms?

No. The answer was shockingly clear.  The fight I was tasked with was to do everything in my power to see General Washington's wishes were fulfilled by the people's power. 

So, I wiped away my tears, set aside the thought of filling AR-15 magazines with bullets, and went to Florida to convince my fellow Americans to vote for our salvation.

Above: On the trail with NSL4A led me to meet this guy. He seems nice. (Photo: Author)

So now it is your turn.

You must vote.

Vote for your life. You may forfeit it and your rights if you do not.

Vote for the lives of the women you love. You may forfeit their lives for the next century if Trump puts in a 9-0 Supreme Court.

Vote for your children. They may soon grow up without fundamental rights we fought centuries to achieve.

Vote for your neighbor’s sake.  They may become your greatest fear if they self-deputize and take up arms against you in the name of Trump. They may also be forced into trucks and trains by the army and police, which were formed to protect them.  It could lead to bloodshed as they have Second Amendment rights as well.

Vote for the American men and women who died in Normandy, Khe Sanh, Bakhmut, Takur Ghar, Peleliu, Fort McPherson, Pearl Harbor, Bunker Hill, the Samar Sea, Yorktown, Fallujah, and the doorway of TWA Flight 847.

These Americans sacrificed themselves to form a more perfect union made up of imperfect people, poor decisions, and ridiculously heroic acts of valor.  They all sacrificed themselves to the idea that America will always progress and live up to its founding words, that we will secure the blessing of Liberty for ourselves and our posterity.

This election day, before you vote, do one last thing … take a knee. Clasp your hands and pray for a few seconds that this nation, of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth.

Then get up and fight for America with all of your heart.

Leave nothing on the field … and we will prevail.

We. Will. Win.