just up at the website of The Washington Post, and titled Alexander Vindman: Coming forward ended my career. I still believe doing what’s right matters.
Here is how he begins:
After 21 years, six months and 10 days of active military service, I am now a civilian. I made the difficult decision to retire because a campaign of bullying, intimidation and retaliation by President Trump and his allies forever limited the progression of my military career.
This experience has been painful, but I am not alone in this ignominious fate. The circumstances of my departure might have been more public, yet they are little different from those of dozens of other lifelong public servants who have left this administration with their integrity intact but their careers irreparably harmed.
But he is just getting started.
He is very blunt, as you can see in this paragraph:
At no point in my career or life have I felt our nation’s values under greater threat and in more peril than at this moment. Our national government during the past few years has been more reminiscent of the authoritarian regime my family fled more than 40 years ago than the country I have devoted my life to serving.
The following paragraph needs to be read in its entirety, and in context, and I urge you to do so.
After more material, in which he makes clear his belief in America DESPITE the current administration, he concludes as follows:
To this day, despite everything that has happened, I continue to believe in the American Dream. I believe that in America, right matters. I want to help ensure that right matters for all Americans.
It is a terrific piece, which offers a sense of hope and optimism about this country, the kind of thing that often inspires those like Vindman to service on behalf of the nation.
Read it.
Pass it on.