Such a powerful piece. Thank you, Michael Jochum. And deepest bow of respect to Major Jason Watson and to all who stand so fiercely in truth, wisdom, and justice. May courage and integrity be contagious! — Molly
The Patriot on the Capitol Steps:
A Majors Conscientious Objecting
I finished rehearsal earlier this afternoon, loaded my gear into the truck, and started the drive back home through another blistering Colorado afternoon. The thermometer was nudging into the 90s, and I caught myself thinking about nothing more complicated than walking through the front door, cranking up the air conditioner, pouring another cup of coffee, and settling in to watch the final episodes of The Bear. In my opinion it’s one of the finest series ever made for television. The writing is extraordinary. The acting is fearless. The direction is nearly flawless. For a few hours, I wanted to forget politics entirely and disappear into someone else’s story.
Then I opened the day’s news.
There, standing on the marble steps of the United States Capitol in his Air Force dress blues, surrounded by officers preparing to arrest him, stood active-duty major Jason Watson who had already made peace with what his conscience was about to cost him. He knew the regulations. He understood the Uniform Code of Military Justice. He knew that criticizing a sitting Commander in Chief while wearing the uniform could very well end the military career he had spent decades building. He knew he would likely be arrested the moment the member of Congress accompanying him stepped away. And yet, there he stood anyway.
That photograph stopped me cold.
To me, this image captures something that has become almost painfully rare in modern America: moral courage. Not performative outrage. Not social media chest-thumping. Not anonymous comments from behind a keyboard. Actual courage. The kind that arrives only after someone has carefully weighed the consequences and decides that remaining silent would be the greater betrayal.
As July Fourth approaches, we’re once again going to be buried beneath choreographed patriotism. Giant flags. Military flyovers. Carefully staged speeches. Endless declarations from politicians insisting they alone represent America. The symbolism will be everywhere. The substance, unfortunately, is often much harder to find.
For me, patriotism has never been about wrapping yourself in the flag while wrapping your hands around power. It has never been about demanding personal loyalty to one man. It has never been about confusing nationalism with love of country. Patriotism is measured by whether someone is willing to defend the Constitution when doing so becomes personally expensive.
This major, in my view, demonstrated exactly that.
He stood on those Capitol steps and argued that President Trump and Vice President Vance should be impeached. He cited what he believed were constitutional violations involving military action abroad, executive authority, immigration enforcement, and civil liberties. Whether every legal claim he made ultimately withstands scrutiny is a matter for constitutional debate. But what cannot be debated is this: he knowingly accepted that speaking publicly in uniform could expose him to arrest and military discipline. That sacrifice was not theoretical. It was immediate.
Contrast that with so many of the senior officials who have spent years privately expressing concern while publicly offering silence. How many memoirs have we read from former cabinet officials who discovered their courage only after the book contract was signed? How many retired generals have confessed what they knew only after the danger to themselves had safely passed? History has never been especially kind to those who waited until it was convenient to become brave.
This officer did not wait.
As I looked at that photograph, I couldn’t help but think back to January 6. I refuse to let that day be sanitized into just another political disagreement. I watched a violent assault on the Capitol carried out in an effort to overturn a lawful election. I watched police officers beaten. I watched Confederate flags carried through the halls of Congress. I watched elected officials flee for their lives. Those events remain part of our national story whether people wish to acknowledge them or not. Forgetting them would not be patriotism. It would be historical amnesia.
Nor do I believe Americans should simply stop asking difficult questions about Jeffrey Epstein and everyone who enabled him. Accountability should never depend on whose name appears in the headlines. Justice loses all meaning when it becomes selectively applied. If we truly believe that no one is above the law, then we must be willing to follow evidence wherever it leads, regardless of party, ideology, wealth, or influence.
Those principles are precisely why this image resonates with me. I don’t see a man seeking celebrity. I don’t see someone auditioning for cable news. I see an officer who apparently decided that the oath he took to defend the Constitution required him to accept enormous personal risk rather than remain comfortably silent. Whether history ultimately judges every aspect of his protest favorably is almost secondary to the larger lesson his actions offer. Democracies survive only when ordinary people occasionally decide that preserving constitutional principles matters more than preserving their own careers.
That lesson should challenge every one of us.
We’re constantly told to “support the troops.” Fine. Then perhaps we should also recognize the profound seriousness of an officer who risks everything because he believes the Constitution itself requires defending. Supporting the military cannot simply mean applauding during flyovers or thanking veterans at football games. Sometimes it also means wrestling honestly with what members of that military are trying to tell us when they believe constitutional boundaries are being crossed.
I have no illusions that one speech on the Capitol steps changes a nation. Democracies are rarely saved by a single dramatic moment. They’re preserved through thousands of individual acts of conscience performed by people who refuse to surrender their principles for comfort, convenience, or career advancement.
As I pulled into my driveway this afternoon, The Bear could wait. Some stories are fiction. Others remind us that courage is still possible. This photograph, at least to me, is one of those stories.
Whether others in positions of authority find similar courage remains to be seen. But if more Americans, civilian and military alike, remember that their highest loyalty is to the Constitution rather than to any individual officeholder, then perhaps there is still reason to believe that the republic is stronger than the ambitions of any one administration.
That, to me, is patriotism.
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