What I Saw At The ‘Save America Rally’ In Washington, DC On Jan. 6

President Trump told the assembly: ‘I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.’

Six friends and I drove almost 20 hours to attend the Save America Rally on Jan. 6 in Washington D.C. with hundreds of thousands of people: families, young people, old people, veterans, Americans of every conceivable ethnicity and background. I stood in the freezing cold, shoulder-to-shoulder with other Americans to the point I simply couldn’t move, there were so many people crowded together.

My group reached the grounds of The Ellipse at 6:30 a.m. where a crowd—already pressing people along with considerable force—was just beginning to assemble. President Trump was scheduled to speak at noon, so we stood dutifully, our toes freezing and joints stiffening, for five hours to hear him speak, hoping to hear how we could navigate the muddy water of election irregularities necessary to save our republic.

The crowd went wild with appreciation as Trump took the stage, yet as soon as he began to speak, a sea of voices stilled to listen. After touching on his hopes for his vice president, his disdain of cowardly Republicans including Mitt Romney, President Trump said to us, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women. We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong” (16:25).

Later, he said, as the transcript verifies, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard” (18:16). I heard President Trump praise manymembers of Congress, but heard nothing to incite violence, unless by a weak-kneed Republican like Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.

Again, we heard nothing from Trump calling for a riot. He used his usual strong language, strongly criticizing those he disagreed with and repeating claims the election was “stolen,” but he did not call for any violence and specifically asked for “peaceful” expression of disagreement. Using his words to excuse crime is on the criminals.

The same is true of his other statements that day, such as the video Twitter banned. It shows Trump acknowledging his supporters’ anger but telling them violence is not the solution: “We have to have peace, we have to have law and order, we have to respect our great people in law and order. We don’t want anybody hurt. It’s a very tough period of time. There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened, where they could take it away from all of us, from me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election, but we can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home. We love you, you’re very special.”

After the president’s speech, we began to be shoved along toward Pennsylvania Avenue as gracefully as overwrapped mummies. For what seemed like hours, we shuffled along at a snail’s pace until our personal space returned and we could once again take full strides.

As the crowd turned over to Pennsylvania Avenue on their way to the capitol, our group turned up 14th Street to our hotel to get something to eat and use the facilities. It was while we were there that we heard of what had happened at the capitol via the major media. We were absolutely, completely shocked beyond comprehension to hear of any violence, considering our previous experience at Trump rallies and after hearing the president’s speech at this one.

Let me be clear. Many of us at that rally felt disenfranchised, overlooked, and angry, but those I met and heard are Constitution geeks whose main interest was seeking proper redress of government through our right to assemble and have our voices heard. Violence from our side was the last thing we would have expected, encouraged, or participated in, ever. Never would we have thought of breaching the capitol, let alone assaulting congressmen.

There were hundreds of thousands of people all standing together peacefully in one spot for more than five hours. A small percentage of this group entered the capitol and perpetrated mayhem while hundreds of thousands were peacefully milling around outside. Video of the event shows other attendees remonstrating with some who broke windows or stood on statues, telling them to stop.

As we sat in the hotel room in various states of shock, glued to TV news, we were consistently surprised at how what the reporters were reporting simply didn’t even match the footage they were showing. If there was so much chaos, disorder, and confusion, why were people milling around and not running for their lives?

Our hotel was at the corner of 14th and Pennsylvania Avenue, so we had quite a view. All we could see from our 10th-floor window were all kinds of Americans walking slowly away from the capitol as though they’d had a leisurely day sightseeing. No one appeared panicked or even the least bit concerned. No one was turning over cars, breaking windows, starting fires, or committing any other crimes like the kind we watched during the “mostly peaceful” leftist protests of the spring.

We decided to walk outside for a better look. We asked people going by, “Why are you leaving the capitol?” Invariably the answer was something like, “My feet hurt,” “We’re exhausted—we’ve been standing all day,” “We’re hungry,” or “We have to use the bathroom.”

Neither seeing nor feeling any danger, we continued our walk. Along the way we saw impromptu street markets stocked with Trump merchandise, often with long lines; street performers of all kinds, music playing, and more of what we’d seen all day: families, dogs, kids, young people, old people, and people of every ethnicity.

Upon arriving at the capitol, we saw masses of people in the street, along the reflecting pool, strewn across the grounds and along the balconies. We saw people listening to street preaching and entrepreneurs selling their wares. We saw a giant flag hanging from the scaffolding prepared for the presidential inauguration and people sitting in the inaugural stands and along the stone balconies.

We saw international media, but no legacy media. Any other media we saw was blocks from the Capitol building. There were no Americans running, or screaming, or turning over statues, or vandalizing or tearing down anything. Here, there was no evidence of any violence of any kind.

We stopped at the stone wall surrounding the capitol grounds and observed for some time. At one point we saw what looked like DC police throw flash-bangs and pepper spray to try and disperse the crowd from around the Capitol building. Minutes later, we witnessed several people stagger by us, one with swollen eyes, tears pouring down his face like a faucet, and others visibly affected by the spray.

We headed back to the hotel, buffeted by the cold wind. Up in our warm hotel room eating a dinner we had brought, we noticed lines of police cars, lights flashing, descending on the hotel. We looked down from our window to find we were being surrounded by 16 vans of DC police in full riot gear, accompanied by even more police cars. At one point the fire alarm rang, jangling our nerves, but we were concerned about leaving the room.

One of the more adventurous of our group went down to the lobby after the (false) alarm ended, to find the hotel entrances completely blocked by DC police. Even those people attempting to leave the hotel to smoke a cigarette were being forced back inside and threatened with arrest. The entire hotel was locked down.

Knowing other people staying in other hotels across the city, we called them, only to find they were also under lockdown, unable to get food or even venture outside to smoke. As soon as the 6 p.m. curfew lifted, we were out of the people’s capital city.

Why are we seeing video of Capitol Police opening barricades around the capitol and beckoning people to come in? Why are there videos of some people inside the capitol singing patriotic songs and taking pictures, as if they did not enter to riot or commit other crimes? Why are people being told that Trump incited a riot when transcripts of his speeches show he explicitly called for peaceful behavior?

As we checked out of our last hotel in Indiana to finish the long drive home, we chatted up the girl pouring our coffee. She was sweet and talkative. She asked where we were from and we told her. From above her mask, her eyes looked soft and kind. She asked where we had come from and we told her, only to watch her eyes glaze over in fear.

Those who hate us have succeeded. We’re now the enemy they intended to make us, starting when we began to push back against their agenda as the Tea Party. They’ve now determined that we are just what they want us to be: “Deplorables.” But that’s not us.

Like the other 74 million Americans who voted for Trump, we are peaceful and patriotic, not criminals or “seditionists” like the media and Democrats are now wildly and frighteningly claiming. The rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6 do not represent us at all, but the left has decided to use the crimes of a relative few to crack down on half the country in a frightening purge that seems to have no logical stopping point.

Except for the few bad actors, who deserve due process and the just punishments the law calls for, like every other rioter, the vast majority of the American citizens who marched on Jan. 6 were guilty of nothing more than a desire to see free and fair elections and of keeping our country a constitutional republic. We did not come to start violence or “sedition,” but to peacefully protest and call on our representatives to do their jobs.

And we will not go away. We have as many questions about the capitol unrest as we have about 2020’s election processes—and none of those are being addressed by corporate media.

As we try to move forward while being falsely attacked for violence we did not participate in and do not condone, I am taking strength from Winston Churchill: “Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense.”

Today I witnessed
‘The Spirit of 76’
2-6-2021

Although my age is 76, the spirit I am referring to is the ‘Spirit of 1776,’ that spirit of the Revolutionary War, 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was signed. Just 5 months later, the winter of 1776 when all was but lost, it was then that George Washington along with his starving, ill-equipped dwindling army, on Christmas night of 1776, crossed the ice flowing Delaware River, attacked, and defeated the powerful Hessian mercenaries and changed the world forever.
In 1965 I served in Vietnam as a paratrooper in the 173Rd Abn. Bdg. At the same time my older brother Jude was serving in Vietnam with the Green Berets. He died as a result of agent orange. I have seen the fear and determination on the face of men jumping out of a perfectly good aircraft. As a combat rifleman, I have seen that same face of fear and determination of my comrades in the jungles of Vietnam. We were well-trained for these missions; we had the best of equipment, jungle fatigues, new M-16 rifles, steel pots, food, and water. If we were wounded, there were ‘Dust Off’ Medevac helicopters to rush us to hospitals. It took courage and determination and luck to make it home.
For the lucky ones that made it home, we were inundated with flag-burning demonstrations by Americans supporting the North Vietnamese communists. As soldiers we fought for their right to demonstrate, guaranteed by the Constitution, and supported by the Supreme Court. As the news media was preparing the public to greet us…as “the kids, not smart enough for college, labeled as ‘Baby Killers’. With their lofty opinion, the news media and academia knew better than the rest of us, we only had ‘common sense’ to see what was truly happening.
So, 55 years later, I find myself along with hundreds of thousands of freedom loving Americans who were in Washington exercising our right to witness what happens in a contested election. Millions of Americans stood in lines for hours in all kinds of weather to cast their ‘personal sacred vote’ This consent of the Governed, is the building block of our Republic, without it we have no Republic. We will have a dictatorship that will reverse the process of future elections, where government officials will dictate the fate of the people being governed.
For many Americans, sports are a passionate pursuit, every sport has specific rules that participants and the public expect them to adhere to. I read somewhere that ‘Golf doesn’t build character it reveals it.’ Would Tiger Woods be considered a great golfer if he shaved off a few strokes on certain courses? Americans will not tolerate a team or players that blatantly cheat.
Thanks to technology we have all seen Super Bowls, demonstrating with clear vision of what just happened on the field of play. Using instant replay, we see exactly what happened, and we accept the results.
We live in a time of high technology, speeding down a toll road a camera will snap a picture, and, in a few days, you receive a bill. Amazon ships millions of packages everyday throughout the world, they will even tell you when each package will arrive. Counting votes should be less complicated than shipping boxes or verifying license plates on speeding vehicles.
With modern technology, we can travel throughout the world to exotic destinations and whip-out a credit card and pay for anything; however, if you go over your credit limit by75 cents, your payment will be instantly denied. But, if you quickly wire transfer money into your c account, you can instantly return to normal credit card bliss.
“Dancing with the Stars” counts millions of votes in hours. With all this technology around us, we find it hard to understand why it takes months to count election votes, and that’s the main reason most of us were there in Washington on 1-6-2021. Like sports enthusiasts, we were there to see how the process works and that there was no cheating.
Let me take that last statement back, stealing votes from those that stand hours and hours to cast their vote, is not cheating. Cheating is being unfaithful to a loved one, cheating is done in sports and games. Stealing votes is not cheating, stealing votes is a crime known as voter fraud. It can destroy the institutions that control our way of life.
We Americans have a strong belief in fair play and common sense, and many of us felt there was something not right about this election. So, when President Trump asked us to come down to Washington to put pressure on our elected officials to do the right thing, to follow the rules of the Constitution, we felt it was a call to duty, and our right as a free people to witness how our elected officials were conducting business in an open clear manner.
Getting back to the ‘Spirt of 76’ I along with hundreds of thousands of God-fearing loving Americans answered President Trump’s invitation to come to Washington to see for ourselves the workings of those that hold the reins of power.
When I got off the bus from Scranton, I noticed just how cold it was, and then we were told, remember the buses are leaving and will not be back until 5pm. As our group walked the long distance toward the Washington Memorial, a native of Northeastern Pennsylvania, I knew how to dress for January weather. I underestimated the low temperature and the cold driving winds. I was freezing. I stayed in the freezing wind-blowing field as long as I could stand it. I looked around at all the large government buildings that belong to the people, they were all guarded by police, so no one could enter to get warm or use the bathrooms. I ventured away from the field looking for a restroom or porta-potty, no luck. I wandered the streets seeking any kind of shelter. The hotels and restaurants were boarded up.
After walking for what seemed like hours, I found a little greasy spoon eatery. I was so happy; it was warm and had a restroom. I ordered a cheeseburger and sat to reflect on the day’s event. Other attendees found the place and it quickly became quite crowded with happy proud Americans from all over the country, California, Alaska, and the fly over states. I spoke with a man from San Francisco, how disappointed he was with the deterioration of that beautiful city. Two high school football players from Frankford, Tennessee, were among the four bus loads that drove all night to be here. I met a proud grandmother with her daughter and grandson who drove from Wisconsin, and many others. All were spirit-filled expressing their love of country and wanted to be here at the Nation’s Capitol to experience this historic event.
Later, as I made my way up to the capitol, I noticed there were no taxies, busses, or even the bicycle rickshaws that on other occasions were all about. Everywhere one went on this day was on foot. I saw hundreds of elderly men and women, some in wheelchairs, others slowly moving along pushing walkers. I recall seeing a frail husband and wife making their way across the frozen field. Again, I saw on them the face of fear and determination I had witnessed so many years ago. I could see in their eyes, living long lives of happiness and sorrows, their love of this country, ‘The spirit of 76’ These are brave and heroic people but will not make the news.
They made it through a tough day of cold blistering wind, no accommodations, restrooms, or assistance in any way. They didn’t come because someone told them to, they didn’t come seeking a job or favor. They didn’t have any assistance or training, no issued equipment, food or water, no dust-off helicopters would rescue them, and yet they came in ‘Harm’s Way’ because they love this country.
This band of elderly valent truth seekers, should be noted and valued, we owe a debt of gratitude for their contribution to America, and we owe them more, we owe them and their children and their children’s children an honest open government, with honest and open elections.
As for what happened at the Capitol Building, I could only see from a distance. However, on our bus there were a few people that did get inside, with the blessing of the Capitol Police waving them in. Perhaps in a later time I can fill in some details. Let me be clear about one thing. Of the hundreds of thousands of flag waving, Trump supporting Americans, not even one of them, did I see expressing anything but respect and love for our great country.

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