This is what I wrote to my representatives:
Sir, as a new comer to Oregon, a military veteran and once a proud supporter of my country I am horrified and ashamed today to be both a veteran AND an American. It's not just that thugs and terrorists overran a place where I used to live and lobby after I left the service in 1979. It is far more that the response was nearly a welcome home to those morons as opposed to the massive military response to perfectly justified Black protests against police killings. To that sir, I offer this:
https://level.medium.com/today-america-showed-us-exactly-who-it-is-believe-it-b7e87072ebfd
This is important reading. I have worked in diversity my entire life. The events of the last four years, underscored in triplicate this last year and in bold yesterday, have taught me that America, the land I once wore a uniform to protect, is dead to me.
One of my great greats is a signatory on the Declaration, sir. I am deeply, horribly and irretrievably ashamed, and worse that this body of political folks did not have the ability to scour the country of this scourge before it got to this point.
These people are students of Hitler's tactics, sir, as is Trump, and his family and his minions. They are just getting started. Do not be so foolish as to think for one moment that the worst is over. We are entering a war for the soul of a country in serious decline.
The very people most likely to save us, most likely to help us become what we might have always been, sir, are the very people against whom this nation has waged a war of slavery and oppression for centuries. That we continue this shameful behavior and effectively invite hate into the hallowed halls of Congress causes me endless pain and embarrassment.
Yesterday's lawlessness dishonored every single American, but most especially every single Black and Brown American, every Asian and Indian American, with the great emphasis on those who, like me signed up to serve, gave their lives to serve the people of this nation and their right to free speech. WE DID NOT put ourselves in harm's way or die for what happened yesterday.
That is terrorism, sir, and it has, and always has since the inception of this nation, threatened us to our foundations.
We have far more to fear from what is within, for our enemies are primed to take advantage of what Trump has wrought, and are right now dancing in the streets at what they saw on the streets of our capital city.
Shame on you as a body for allowing this to happen. Shame on us as a nation that we find our Black neighbors, friends, coworkers, leaders and intellectuals far more a threat than the jack-booted thugs who tore through Nancy Pelosi's office office, taking selfies with Capital police, police who would far more likely have shot to death a Black protestor trying to enter that same office.
PLEASE.
When, sir, are you and your esteemed colleagues going to wake up?
Today I am no longer a proud American.
Julia Hubbel