The Meaning of Veterans Day and the Case of the Chinese Prisoners of Faith

On February 22, 1983, I raised my right hand in the Los Angeles MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station) and said, “I, Charles Stuart DeVore, do solemnly swear 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…” With those words, I became United States Army Private First Class DeVore, joining the millions of others since 1789 who swore with their lives to “support and defend the Constitution.”

Unlike many veterans, I have been fortunate not to see combat. I was “officially” shot at only once; during the Los Angeles riots in 1992 (well, there was that time in Lebanon, but that wasn’t official; and I was carjacked in 1988 by Panamanian paramilitaries).

When the members of the armed forces of the United States of America fight, they do so not just for their colleagues in uniform next to them – virtually every soldier in history has done that – they do so not for king or country – they fight to preserve a document, the Constitution. In that, the United States Armed forces have become the greatest force for good, for freedom, that the world has ever seen because the Constitution exists to make a reality out of the promise of the Declaration of Independence to secure our “unalienable rights” of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

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