guest COMMENTARY

Guarding the Capitol

Oh! The humanity!

You can't watch the news without seeing videos of people getting the Covid injection. Let's just admit that everybody is hinky about something, and some people become wall-climbers at the thought, much less the visual, of someone receiving an injection.

I think of people suddenly leaving their chairs for the kitchen in the middle of the news.

The fear is common enough that there is a name for it — trypanophobia.

The National Guard occupation of the Capitol following the riot of January 6 continues with little new information. The riot was a mess and should not have happened.

The place is surrounded by steel fencing topped by razor wire like you see around the county jail.

There are thousands of guardsmen and women around the U.S. Capitol, and they have been there for weeks, but why? For how long? What are their “rules of engagement?”

How long will the barriers be up? In my view, the same people who say the wall on our southern border will not work believe this one will.

The guardsmen around the Capitol are armed, and one must assume it is not for show.

What would it take for a guardsman to lift, aim, discharge his/her weapon at a citizen who was banging on the gate or trying to slip through it?

A government employee was shown on national television shooting and killing unarmed Ashli Babbitt for doing just that. We don't know the name of the government employee and probably won't.

The mainstream media refers to the January 6 riot as “the deadly riot” and The New York Times reported that Officer Brian Sicknick's death was “the result of being hit by a fire extinguisher.”

The paper didn't offer a source for the fire extinguisher story, only the same “unnamed sources” the paper might use when they really don't have any.

As of this writing the Medical Examiner's report has not been released except to state that Officer Sicknick died from a stroke.

National Guardsmen are true citizen soldiers. They hold down jobs and live in our communities.

We are accustomed to seeing National Guard guys and gals trucking out to help in emergencies. They are our neighbors and friends.

Once they slip into their ACU's (Army Combat Uniforms), they are down to business.

When guardsmen were having to sleep in a concrete parking deck and eat MRE's (meal, ready to eat) three times a day, local folks started taking them food. One woman became known as “the pizza lady” and motivated others to donate thousands of pizzas and food to the guardsmen.

That was a good thing, a very good thing to do.

But I can't help but wonder if a Guardsman would fire on unarmed citizens.

I hope not, but there is that nagging memory of May 4, 1970, when the Ohio National Guard shot and killed four and wounded nine others at Kent State University.

Would it happen today? Are we being manipulated to see each other as “others?”

What if “the pizza lady” was at the gate?

joenphillips@yahoo.com