A Marine Corps Lt. Colonel's 4th Of July Thoughts

This article was published by MS NOW on July 4, 2026, and was written by Richard Westmoreland, Lt. Col. Marine Corps (Ret.)  It is copied below in its entirety.

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This piece is part of “America in the balance: The fight for our history and future,” a special series from MS NOW that explores where we are as a nation as we commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

When I flew over countries like Iraq and the former Yugoslavia as a Marine Corps F/A-18 pilot, I often wondered how they came to be ruled by authoritarians. During our conflicts with those countries, I read every book I could to help me understand the culture, history and more recent events that led up to the U.S. military darkening their skies. 

I spent 20 years of my life as a Marine Corp fighter pilot, and I savored every minute of my time wearing my nation’s uniform. The memories of my service still fill me with pride. Not only was I honored to help defend our nation’s ideals, but I enjoyed the camaraderie of educated, confident and highly driven individuals who were honored to do the same.

If you had asked me before I retired in 2005 how I’d feel on July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary, I would have imagined I’d be feeling every bit of the pride I felt when I was in international skies defending our country, but the creeping authoritarianism of the last decade, and the willingness of so many Americans to accept it, has me worried.

More than five years ago, after insurrectionists (including some with military training) stormed the Capitol, I wrote a column expressing my anger — if only to signal the social media group of former Marine Corps fighter pilots I had belonged to. I have found that the overwhelming majority of the Marine fighter pilots I know support President Donald Trump, and while I have priceless memories of my time with those who were as close as brothers in my USMC squadrons, their continuing support for this lawless president has divided me from them.

I don’t think the average U.S. citizen appreciates the sheer luck involved in our nation’s formation. Our founding fathers, men of great intellect, morals and courage, were not only alive at one time — at one place in history; they were willing to risk everything to form what would become the world’s greatest democracy. But we can’t count on luck to get us back to where we need to be. We need a renewed commitment to the American idea.

When I was flying over other countries and thinking about how their authoritarian regimes developed, I never imagined that I’d one day be asking similar questions about my own country. 

Today, we are clearly drifting further and further into authoritarianism. Look at the evidence. Last year, the president staged a military parade on his birthday and warned that anyone who showed up to protest would be met with “very big force … very heavy force.” Like dictators in other parts of the world have done, Trump has had enlarged photos of himself hung on government buildings. He had to be forced to take his name off the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington. I remember seeing Saddam Hussein’s picture on the currency of Iraq, and I can’t believe I’m living in an America where a president is trying to create a $250 dollar bill with his face on it.

But it’s not just Trump putting his name and face on everything that’s the problem.  He’s pushed the Department of Justice to charge his political opponents and dissidents with made-up crimes. When immigration agents killed Alex Pretti and Renée Good in January in Minneapolis, the Trump administration labeled them domestic terrorists. His administration has seized ballots in Atlanta, and he has tried to take over the election process — by executive order.  His defense secretary has pushed out exemplary high-ranking military officers for no discernible reason and has reportedly blocked the promotions of deserving women and racial minorities.

I put my life on the line as often as I did because I believe America is worth dying for.  

After he lost to former President Joe Biden in 2020, Trump was the first American president to refuse to participate in a peaceful transfer of power. He instead incited a Jan. 6, 2021, riot that will forever be a stain on our nation’s history. Even now, he continues to lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him. He doesn’t endorse candidates (or hire for his administration) people who tell the truth that Biden won fair and square.

I don’t know how we got here. The book that fully explains our own country’s descent into authoritarianism has not been written. I’m not sure any book will ever be able to fully explain it.

I have often wondered what the great men who founded our country — men like Washington, Jefferson and Hamilton — would think of a man like Trump. What would they think of us for electing him?

Though my pride is now mixed with worry and disappointment, I love my country as much as I ever have. I put my life on the line as often as I did because I believed America was worth dying for.  

President Abraham Lincoln famously began his 1863 Gettysburg Address with an acknowledgement of July 4, 1776, the day we’re remembering today. He said the people present that day to dedicate the site of a major Civil War battle as a cemetery were there to “highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

Though it’s exactly that kind of government that seems to be dying. This day — the 250th anniversary of our country — is the day that we should all resolve to help bring such a government back to life.

This is our country. You don’t have to have ever been in the military to fight for what it ought to be.

Post Library

Since I’ve retired I have had a lot of time on my hands. I had never been much of a reader, in fact one of the things I really disliked about high school was having to write the dreaded book report!

Although I clearly remember a book I checked out of the Tuy Hot AFB library in 1968 when I was 21 years old.  The title was Ploiesti, a story of the 1943 Allied attack on the Romanian oil fields and Nazi refineries during World War II.  I read it when I was on TDY to Saigon to learn about our photo labs new ES-38B processing labs we had just received at Phabulous Phu Hiep By The Sea.  I simply could not set this book down until I finished it.  I don’t know if this particular book is still in print, but there are others that tell this story of the low level Allied raid that is well worth reading.

Since our kids were little and I read them their bedtime stories like Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever and Cars and Trucks and Things That Go (reading to them was something my wife Karin encouraged me to do) I enjoyed reading to them just for the pleasure it.  And in the past ten or fifteen years I have begun to read more and more.

When I was working at Seattle Children’s Hospital a colleague gave me an adventure novel by Clive Cussler and I was hooked!  In case you’re not aware who Cussler is, his Wikipedia bio states that he “was an American adventure novelist and underwater explorer.” He founded the National Undersea and Marine Agency (NUMA) “which has discovered more than 60 shipwreck sites and numerous other notable underwater wrecks.”  

I was given a Kindle several years ago, so my access to books has broadened considerably.  I have read I don’t know how many Cussler novels plus a lot of World War II historical stories that are really well written.  The great thing about the Kindle is that many of the books are in series of up to five or more volumes that include the same characters but broaden out the original plot and often refer back to the original ones.

I’ve just finished a series entitled Sunlit Silence by Frank A. Mason (the first book in the series is Sunward I’ve Climbed) about a young man in Georgia from a family whose matriarch is a member of the DAR (Daughters the America Revolution), who really wants her son Robert Harney “Trip” Gibson III to attend Georgia Tech.  But his love of flying is so strong (he actually owns a JN-4 Jenny) that he clandestinely goes to Spain in 1938 to fly in the Spanish civil war, and subsequently ends up flying for the French and the British against the Nazis and then for his own country in World War II.  

Mason’s books and many others that I’ve read are filled with history from which I have learned about events that were new to me.  For instance, I’ve seen news reels about the CG-3 Waco gliders that were towed behind C-47s, particularly during the D-Day invasion of Normandy over eight decades ago.  Mason spends a fair amount of time describing how these gliders from different Allied assaults were actually retrieved using the Model 80C Pickup System.  It’s a fascinating process; take a look at this amazing operation at this article (complete with photos) from the National WWII Glider Pilots Association.  

Another series I am just finishing up is After Dunkirk by Lee Jackson.  This wonderful series follows a family from the island of Sark in the Channel Islands whose mother of the Littlefield family is the head (Dame of Sark) of the local government. Her family’s circumstances are followed throughout the series as World War II progresses.  When I began this series I had never heard of Sark and had to look it up and I discovered that the Channel Islands the only European location where Nazi Germany actually occupied British territory.

Anyway, that’s all from the “Post Library” for today.  Please let me know what books you have read or are reading because I know that you like me have some time on your hands nowadays.

2026 Annual Association Reunion

Banquet 2025

The 2026 Reunion of the OV-1 Mohawk Association is coming up very soon!  It has been scheduled for August 27-29 in Washington, DC.  Our Brother Alan Summers, formerly of the 225th Surveillance Airplane Company, is Reunion Director for the Association and has put together a wonderful sounding outing this year!  Take a look at the schedule here…

Alan wrote “DC is an expensive location so plan ahead. We did the best we could to keep costs down but between State of Virginia taxes and fees, costs for transportation, mandatory legal regulations (event on an Army base / federal land), and cost-of-living in DC, the charges are the best we can do.”

Be sure and apply for your 2nd mortgages so you can be sure to have enough money to buy gas, or your plane ticket(s), reunion registration and hotel reservation for the party.  We’re staying at the Sheraton Pentagon City again where we had a wonderful time when we were last in DC.

Planned trips are to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport, and a tour of Monuments and Museums.  The closing banquet will be at the National Museum of the US Army.

Check out the info on the Association’s web page by clicking on 2026 Reunion button at the top.

Feathers

Hooded Oriole

Another hobby I’ve enjoyed since the pandemic has been to really notice the many different species of birds we have just around our neighborhood here in Thurston County, Washington.  I found an app for my phone (Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab of Ornithology) that helps identify a particular avifauna from a photo or specific call.

It’s been great because this app has a provision that enables you to keep a list of all the birds you’ve identified and the location where you saw it.  So far is have a list of 28 different species from here in our back yard in Lacey, a couple from our trip to Mexico earlier in the spring, and one from a trip we took to Kauai, Hawaii last year.

Red-Wing Blackbirds

In Mexico this year we saw brown pelicans, cactus wrens and beautiful orange hooded orioles.  It was wonderful to be able to identify these using the app.

It’s common for us to see bald eagles and red-tailed hawks as we're driving.  And we regularly have California scrub jays, woodpeckers (particularly flickers), crows, red-winged blackbirds, goldfinches (the official Washington State bird) and black-capped chickadees come to feed at our feeders in the back yard.  We have a chickadee nest in a hanging pot on our deck.

Cooper's Hawk

I was very surprised to see a Cooper's Hawk sitting on our face one morning also.  Dark-eyed juncos have nested in our vegetables the past couple of years.

We also have at least two types of hummingbirds (Anna’s and Rufous) daily visiting year round.

Humming Birds At Dinner

Formation Flying

Late in my tour at Phabulous Phu Hiep by the Sea I became a Flight-Follow Observer, a side job that I enjoyed very much.  But early on I also got to ride along on a CH-54 Flying Crane mission.  That was a thrill of a different kind than riding the right seat of an OV-1 Mohawk.

Click here to see the full story...

Note: At the end of the slide presentation (28 slides) just hit ESCAPE to return to the blog.

Bomber Gas Station

When I was a kid we lived in Seattle and would take trips to Salem, Oregon to visit my grandmother and uncles.  In those days there were no interstate highways, so my dad would drive us down US Highway 99 through Tacoma, Olympia, Centralia and a bunch of other small towns on the way to the Oregon border.

When we crossed into Oregon we continued down US 99 and eventually split off onto “99E.”  Well, 99E went through the community of Milwaukie.  I distinctly remember passing a gas station called “The Bomber” that had a B-17 bomber mounted above the gas pumps!  I don’t remember ever stopping for gas (that was when it was something like 25.9¢ a gallon!) but I still can see that big airplane in my mind’s eye!  On a website I was The Bomber had the highest volume sales of gasoline of any station at the time!

Recently, I drove to Salem to see a friend from high school and I purposely drove the slow 99E route and wondered whatever happened to the Bomber Gas Station.  To diverge slightly, a few days ago I saw a newspaper article about the Cowlitz Indian Tribe’s “Beaver Kit Cam” at the tribe’s beaver husbandry facility on the Cowlitz reservation in southwest Washington.  At the website there was a list of YouTube videos; at the top of the list was “Recovering B-17 “Lacey’s Lady”: Gas Station Bomber to Fly Again.” This is a 20 minute video about this very same plane I saw when I was a kid!

The plane is now at the B-17 Alliance Museum, Restoration Hangar, and PX, 3278 25th St. SE, Salem, OR. 97302

https://b17alliance.com/museum/

Here’s the link to the YouTube bomber video…take a look, I think you’ll enjoy it!  (Please note there may be an add at the beginning of the video that you can skip.)

Remembering Our Friends This Memorial Day

Please take a moment to remember our friends who gave their lives in the service to their country while serving with us in the 225th Aviation Company in Vietnam.  Click on the link below.

https://vimeo.com/user10634067/mayweneverforget?fl=ip&fe=ec