How to Honor Everyday Those Who Died Fighting

A Little History for Context

New Hampshire Public Radio’s (NHPR) “Veterans Day and Memorial Day both honor those who’ve served. Here’s how they differ” mentions “Memorial Day has its roots in the Civil War”. Wikipedia’s Memorial Day entry indicates “A variety of cities and people have claimed origination of Memorial Day. In some such cases, the claims relate to documented events, occurring before or after the Civil War.” Based on the Wikipedia article’s Talk page, I suspect the NHPR article might not be nuanced enough when it states “it was originally created to honor soldiers who fought in the Civil War”.

Since at least some of Memorial Day’s origins lie in the Civil War, however, it’s especially important to me to publish this article today. Why today? Beyond the importance of honoring those who died defending of our country, it’s important to recognize and accept we’re in the midst of two wars right now. One is a hot war with Iran that began on February 28, 2026, and other is a cold civil war with several internal groups within the US that began decades ago and is quickly heating up.

As citizens and residents in the United States, we can honor the sacrifice of those who fought for our freedom by continuing the fight for our freedom. How? Read on.

Hot War with Iran

On February 28, 2026, the United States military joined Israel in attacking Iran. Per Wikipedia, “the US and Israel launched airstrikes on Iran, targeting military and government sites and assassinating several Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.” I’m not going to spend time in this post talking about this war. It’s obvious the war is happening. Thankfully, US casualties have been few, and its effects on most of us has been higher prices for products like gas.

Cold US Civil War

I wrote most of the following for last year’s Memorial Day. I didn’t think it was ready for publishing, so I didn’t. A lot has changed over the last year . Too much to include in this post, so I’m going to lightly update what I wrote before. As the Administration quickens its actions to weaken our nation, I feel compelled to publish this post now.

To provide context for my argument that the US is already in a cold war with itself, let’s take a look at the US Constitution.

The United States Constitution

When the US Founding Fathers created the US Constitution to form the national government, they used the

• first article to create and structure the legislative branch (Congress) and specify its responsibilities, including the Enumerated Powers in Section 8 that include the power to
  • “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States”,
  • “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations”,
  • “establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization”,
  • “declare War”
  • and in section 9 specify “the Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”
• second article to create the executive branch (Administration) and specify its responsibilities, including that the president “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”.
• third article to create the judicial branch (Federal Courts) and specify its responsibilities.
• fourth article to specify the addition of new states and the relationships and responsibilities of each state within the union.
• fifth article to specify how changes to the Constitution (amendments) should be done.
• sixth article to set the Constitution as the supreme law of the land, require federal and state senators and representatives and all executive and judicial officers of the US and states to support the Constitution*, and to stipulate that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”
• seventh article to specify how the Constitution would be ratified.

* In compliance with article six mentioned above, members of the Federal legislative and administrative branches (including the president and all military officers) take an oath of office. This is the oath of office since 1884, “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”

A conservative friend of mine once told me the Founding Fathers didn’t want a single person to rule the country, so they used the first article to create Congress and thereby make it the preeminent branch. They created the other two branches to facilitate the checks and balance of power within the federal government to prevent tyranny by any one branch. Since our first civil war (1861-1865) through the end of 2024, those checks and balances have largely held to protect the freedoms most citizens of the United States enjoy.

The United States’ Current Cold Civil War

For several years now, I’ve felt various factions within the US have been waging a kind of hidden cold war. So hidden and cold, in fact I’m not even sure who’s fighting who. I used to think it was the wealthy attacking the middle and lower economic classes, then I thought it was conservatives attacking liberals. Now I think both of those are part of a larger civil war in which those who support autocracy are attacking the democratic republic established by the US Constitution.

In his moves toward becoming a dictator, I wondered whether President Donald Trump has usurped more power over and for the federal government’s administrative branch than any administration since FDR, so I did some online researching. Looking for reputable sources, I found a Rolling Stone article titled “Are Trump’s Actions ‘Unprecedented’? Here’s What Seven Historians Say” by Miles Klee. Klee wrote, “One word comes up again and again as the media, legal experts, and longtime government officials try to describe what Trump has done in retaking power and launching a campaign of revenge against his enemies: ‘unprecedented.'” Sounds like President Trump has usurped more power from Congress than even FDR did.

Remember FDR was fighting against (1) the Great Depression that had engulfed economies around the world and (2) the Axis powers in WWII. Those were pretty big challenges in world history. President Trump claims he’s entitled to this unprecedented concentration of political power because he’s fighting unlawful

• illegal immigration
• illegal drugs
• corruption
• trade deficits

He and his administration claim they’re supporting the Constitution, but their actions identified below show they’re disobeying the Constitution’s precepts. Let’s look at each item President Trump claims entitles him to assume more political power.

Illegal Immigration

According to “Unprecedented U.S. immigration surge boosts job growth, output” from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, immigration has gone up since 2021, but “as a result of the immigration surge, GDP will be higher by about $8.9 trillion and federal government tax revenues by $1.2 trillion over the 2024-34 period. Deficits will be lower by $900 billion.” That seems to indicate President Trump’s claim that illegal immigrants are destroying the nation is false. The article points out that with baby boomers retiring and US birth rates going down, we actually need more immigrants to bolster our workforce or our GDP will decline. Despite the positive effect of immigrants coming to the US, working, starting businesses, and paying taxes, President Trump disparages illegal immigrants with claims they’re poisoning the nation.

Trump Administration’s attack on Constitution: Congress followed article one’s requirements by creating laws to support legal immigration and handling of illegal immigrants (naturalization) and laws to support Habeas Corpus. By ignoring those laws, President Trump and his administration are defying article two’s requirement to faithfully execute the laws created by Congress. Instead, they’re ignoring Congress’ role in creating laws and creating pseudo laws by executive order.

Illegal Drugs

The latest press release from the CDC “U.S. Overdose Deaths Decrease Almost 27% in 2024” states “Provisional data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics indicate there were an estimated 80,391 drug overdose deaths in the United States during 2024—a decrease of 26.9% from the 110,037 deaths estimated in 2023. Annual drug overdose deaths are projected to reach their lowest level since 2019.” Looks like the war on illicit drugs was already being won, before President Trump declared his own war on it. His administration’s cuts to health services, however, could reverse that trend. A National Public Radio story titled “Trump team revokes $11 billion in funding for addiction, mental health care“, ends with “Addiction experts told NPR they are now bracing for what many believe will be deep cuts to Medicaid funding, which provides the largest single source of insurance coverage for drug and alcohol treatment nationwide. ‘It’s very hard to look at the budget framework created by Republicans and imagine a scenario other than Medicaid being cut severely,’ Stanford University’s Keith Humphreys said. ‘It’s a frightening prospect. That will be extremely painful for families facing addiction.'”

Trump Administration’s attack on Constitution: Using their Constitutionally provided authority to appropriate money (“power of the purse”), Congress appropriated money to fund addiction and mental health care. President Trump instead ignored article two’s requirement that the administration faithfully execute the laws passed by Congress.

Corruption

The MIchigan Independent article “Trump is systematically eliminating anti-corruption guardrails” reports “Less than a month into his second term in the White House, President Donald Trump has rolled back ethics rules, removed government watchdogs, and halted legal proceedings against government officials accused of corruption.” If the president is really fighting a war against corruption, it makes no sense to fire the front-line forces attacking corruption.

Trump Administration’s attack on Constitution: President Trump is again ignoring article two’s requirement for the administration to faithfully execute the laws passed by Congress.

Trade Deficits

President Trump’s on again/off again tariffs won’t help him increase domestic manufacturing to win the war to decrease trade deficits. It takes years to build manufacturing plants, so businesses need confidence that US tariffs will continue for years after those plants are built before it makes financial sense to build factories in the US. There’s also the problem that hiring US workers is significantly more expensive than hiring working overseas, so unless the tariffs are high enough that it’s cheaper for US. consumers to buy US made goods, then consumers will continue to buy lower cost foreign made goods. Moreover, for the war on trade deficits to work, US workers will need to fill those jobs. According to a press release published in March from the National Association of Manufacturers, “Over the past year, we have averaged 500,000 open manufacturing jobs in America—well-paying, life-changing careers.“

Trump Administration’s attack on Constitution: President Trump has usurped Congress’ article one authority to lay and collect taxes (i.e., tariffs).

For each of the items above that President Trump has said he’s fighting for, what he’s doing doesn’t make sense from a solutions point of view; appears likely to make America worse, not better; and breaks Constitutional law and his oath to support the Constitution. For all four items, it would be better that he and his administration follow existing law, engage with Congress to succeed in the “wars” he claims to be fighting, and follow the Constitution to change the laws.

Continuing the Fight to Defend the US and its Constitution

On April 14, 2025, the Anchorage Daily Times published a news story by Zachariah Hughes titled “‘We are all afraid’: Speaking to Alaska nonprofit leaders, Murkowski gets candid on upheaval in federal government“. In the story, Hughes wrote “U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski told a room full of Alaska nonprofit leaders that the tumult of tariffs, executive orders, court battles, and cuts to federal services under the Trump administration are exceptionally concerning. ‘We are all afraid,’ Murkowski said, taking a long pause. ‘It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. And I’ll tell ya, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right.'” Hughes goes on to write, “Murkowski was exceptionally candid criticizing aspects of the Trump administration’s approach to implementing policy measures and service cuts, some of which she described as ‘unlawful.'”

The very first amendment to the Constitution states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

I assume the retaliation Republican Sen. Murkowski spoke about includes President Trump calling her “disloyal”, “stupid”, “weak”, etc., and supporting a Republican challenger against her in the primary. I’ve heard reports that many Republican politicians in the federal government are afraid of losing their positions to a President Trump-backed challenger. In normal times, I would say that’s karmic pay-back for ignoring President Trump’s past crimes and voting to keep him in office during his past two impeachment trials. These are not normal times, however.

Under President Trump’s leadership and threats to effectively remove Republican representatives and senators from their jobs by constituents, we constituents need to turn the tables. We need to assure our Republican Members of Congress (MOCs) that we will fire them if they DO NOT stand against President Trump and assert their Constitutionally-mandated authority and responsibility to keep a rogue president and administration in check.

When a politician is so afraid that he or she is willing to break their own oath to support the Constitution, I see that as a call to action to force Congress to honor their oath. On Memorial Day, we honor military men and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice to defend the Constitution. I can think of no better way to honor their sacrifice than to overcome whatever fears we have that prevents us from telling our MOCs what we want them to do in Congress. I wrote how to do that in my article What is the Best Way to Defend the U.S. Constitution?,

Will you join me in honoring the servicemen and women who died defending liberty by using your voice as a constituent to demand your MOC stand up to the traitor sitting in the Oval Office and his lackeys in the administration?