Here’s a refresher course on the chain of events, starting 5 years ago, that has culminated with people all over the world taking a knee in 2020. Everyone has heard of Colin Kaepernick. But have you ever heard of Nate Boyer? Not sure? Well to start with, that’s him on the right, hand over heart.
Nate Boyer has a pretty unusual story. He grew up just north of Berkeley, a 49ers fan. He considered joining the military after HS, not unlike many 18-year-olds, but it was only at age 24, after volunteering at a refugee camp in Darfur — where he saw first hand the horrors of the genocide that killed 400,000 people — that he enlisted. He became a Green Beret and did tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Somewhere in there he got the idea to teach himself how to be a long snapper — hiking the ball back for punts and kicks — by watching YouTube videos, despite never having played organized football at any level ever. He made the University of Texas football roster as a 29-year-old freshman, and soon he was leading the Longhorns onto the field carrying the American flag.
Yet he continued to serve in the Army during football off-season (here’s a jaw-dropping account of being in a firefight with football on your mind, scroll about 1/3 down). In 2015, he made it to the NFL in the Seahawks’ summer training camp as a 34-year-old rookie. He got to carry the flag there as well, before he was released.
The next year, during the 2016 pre-season, 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick stayed seated for the national anthem, and after the third game he was finally asked about it. "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder." This started the ruckus with which we are all now familiar, especially Trump trying to tell the NFL what to do about it. Most people forget that up until this point Kaepernick had been sitting, not kneeling, and had not made any prior public comments.
Meanwhile Nate Boyer, the Niners fan, had a football that Kaepernick had signed for a charity that Boyer supported (his dad was the winning bidder for it), and Kaepernick had written on it, “God bless our troops.” As Boyer was known by more than a few people to have both NFL and military experience, several requests came to him for an editorial. These he declined, reasoning he wasn’t going to change any minds. He finally agreed to a second request from the Army Times, as long as he could write it as an open letter. A couple days later he wrote:
“Colin. I'm a big fan. I've been pulling for you ever since I first saw you play in the 2012 preseason.” He notes that he’d even spent one day in the 49ers training camp the previous summer before landing in Seattle, and he mentions the signed football, saying, “I know you support the military.” Then he continued:
Unfortunately, I also know that racism still exists in our country, as it does in every other country on this planet, and I hate that I know that. I hate the third verse of our national anthem*, but thankfully we don’t sing that verse anymore. I hate that at times I feel guilty for being white.
after a bit explains why he signed up:
De Oppresso Liber ("To Free the Oppressed") is the Army Special Forces motto, and the reason I wanted to become a Green Beret. I didn't enlist to fight for what we already have here; I did it because I wanted to fight for what those people didn't have there: Freedom.
and after a bit more he concludes:
I’m not judging you for standing up for what you believe in. It’s your inalienable right. What you are doing takes a lot of courage, and I’d be lying if I said I knew what it was like to walk around in your shoes. I’ve never had to deal with prejudice because of the color of my skin, and for me to say I can relate to what you’ve gone through is as ignorant as someone who’s never been in a combat zone telling me they understand what it’s like to go to war.
Even though my initial reaction to your protest was one of anger, I’m trying to listen to what you’re saying and why you’re doing it. When I told my mom about this article, she cautioned me that "the last thing our country needed right now was more hate." As usual, she’s right.
There are already plenty people fighting fire with fire, and it’s just not helping anyone or anything. So I’m just going to keep listening, with an open mind.
I look forward to the day you're inspired to once again stand during our national anthem. I'll be standing right there next to you. Keep on trying … De Oppresso Liber.
Nate Boyer didn’t have any expectation of what, if anything, would come from this, but it went viral. Later that week, before the 49ers final preseason game in San Diego, Boyer was actually a guest at the NFL Network in LA. A call came in from Kaepernick’s publicist, saying that the QB wanted to meet the Green Beret, and if he was okay with that there was an Uber waiting to take him to Kaepernick. So off he went. When they met it was very polite, and each made a good faith effort to understand the other. Boyer described Kaepernick as “very receptive” when he offered his reasoning about why he thought staying seated sent the wrong message: “It’s during the anthem, and that’s a sacred time for a lot of people.” He continued, “I think sitting on the bench isolated from your team is not very inspiring. It looks like you’re sitting it out or you don’t care.” Kaepernick made it clear that he wasn’t going to stand, but he asked Boyer if he had any ideas on something he could do that would better send the message. Boyer thought taking a knee alongside his teammates was better that sitting behind them. As he later explained to Bryant Gumbel:
We sorta came to a middle ground where he would take a knee alongside his teammates. Soldiers take a knee in front of a fallen brother's grave, you know, to show respect. When we're on a patrol, you know, and we go into a security halt, we take a knee, and we pull security. He said, “I think that would be-- I think-- I think that would be really powerful.” And, you know, he asked me to do it with him. And I said, “Look, I'll stand next to you. I gotta stand though. I gotta stand with my hand on my heart. That's just-- that's just what I do and where I'm from." I was showing that I support his right to do that, I support the message behind what he’s demonstrating for. But I’m also standing with pride because I feel differently in a lot of ways too. But there’s nothing wrong with feeling differently and believing different things. We can still work together to make this place better.
So that’s how it came to pass that the very first time Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem, he did so with guidance from a Green Beret who supported him and stood with him.
*about that third verse of the national anthem, how many of you know how it ends?
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.