As a veteran, I want to express the opinion that the D.C. parade on Saturday (supposedly honoring the U.S. Army, not the current commander-in-chief) is not only a complete waste of $40 million, it looks like something Stalin or Putin or Kim Jong Un would do. Americans celebrate the end of wars but we don’t put on parades during peacetime. There has only been one military parade since the end of WWII and that was in 1991, celebrating the return of Americans from Iraq after pushing Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait.

I was drafted in 1970. The Army decided to make me an MP and I decided to make myself a “correctional specialist,” aka a prison guard. I served stateside at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas.

Twenty years ago I thought the drafted army I served in would never have permitted the torturing of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. We would have refused to go along. It’s worth noting that half of the guards at Abu Ghraib were Army Reserve or National Guard units. I am not dissing either the Guard or the Reservists, but I am saying they were not trained to handle the pressure cooker they were put in, especially given the people who were in charge.

Fifty-five years ago, Ohio National Guardsmen — without orders — fired on students at Kent State and killed four of them; those Guardsmen had little or no training in how to deal with civilian protests. Subsequent reports detailed the many failings of command and control, as well as the lack of training of those soldiers to interact with civilian crowds.

Today, I look at the Marines sent to Los Angeles (with two days’ worth of civil unrest training), as well as California National Guard troops mobilized by President Trump (said to have several days of civil unrest training) and it seems to me this administration is eager to risk tragedy again. Much worse, it’s obvious that President Trump is willing to use our military against the civilian population, something he has said he is willing to do across the country.

I object. It’s one thing when the local police ask for state assistance or a governor says they need help in a given situation. It’s one thing when troops are called in to support a court order. It’s quite another thing when the president says he doesn’t need local or state invitations and/or court instructions to intervene. What happened to states’ rights? What happened to local control? What happened to the right of the people to peaceably assemble? Both in Los Angeles and for the parade in D.C., it looks to me like Trump thinks he can intimidate those who disagree with him by a show of force.

And if the people are peaceable and give no reason to use force? What then? There are agent provocateurs, on both the left and right, who want to see a confrontation that results in an escalation of violence. Good people are needed in the streets so the bad people don’t ruin things for everyone.

Silence in this situation is not an option. The time to peaceably assemble and object to what is being done to our country is now. I hope you will join me in attending one of the many demonstrations taking place under the banner of “NO KINGS.”

Bob Ciernia is a retired publisher. He lives in White River Junction.