A Crowd Cheers as a Father Dies Protecting His Family. This is Not the America We Were Promised.

A Military widow reflects on the attempted assassination and the way Americans continue to sacrifice their lives for a broken system that is failing them.

I pull the American flag from a shelf in my office, still folded into a triangle exactly as it was when it was handed to me at my husband’s funeral fourteen years ago. My relationship with this flag is complicated, and I want to remember why I’ve sacrificed so much for it. I’m struck by how different the object in my hands is from the American flag I imagine: waving in the wind, brightly colored stars and stripes, fluid, majestic, and alive. The object in my lap is stiff with pieces of dust and fuzz stuck to it. The fabric is thick and rough; all sharp edges; lifeless.

In the years since my husband’s death, many people have called him a hero. They say he fought to protect our freedom, to protect this flag I’m holding. They try to convince me that his death had a greater purpose or that I should be proud in some way of the sacrifices we made. But, this weekend, as I watched former President Trump being shot at, images of blood streaked across his cheek, this flag flying behind his fist in the air as he mouthed the word “fight” at a riotous crowd waving middle fingers, all I felt was fear, disappointment, and anger.

I have never witnessed anything so chillingly symbolic of the way I’ve come to understand our country, especially as a military widow. What I witnessed was a group of very average people cheering for a man with unimaginable power for getting lucky after yet another shooting in a country known for gun violence, all while one of their own was dying of a gunshot wound in the crowd. The life of the most powerful person in the group was prioritized, even protected by the bodies of other human beings, as people in the crowd stood vulnerable. And as Corey Comperatore–a dad; a firefighter–lay dead, his peers were so distracted by the spectacle of their leader’s triumphant fist and declaration to “fight” that they hardly seemed to notice or care. 

I was raised to believe in the American Dream. My father, who served in the Army as a green beret, believed that with enough prayers and hard work, he could be and have anything. I grew up being told the United States was exceptional: a symbol of freedom to the rest of the world. But, that’s not what my family found when he got out of the military. My parents struggled to put food on the table. They struggled to afford healthcare. Clothes. A home. We suffered in ways that we will carry with us for the rest of our lives.

While I can’t claim to know exactly how our government works or what the motivations of the people in power are, I do know that the people in the crowd at that rally have more in common with me, despite our political differences, than a politician or billionaire does. We are all living in a country that promised us the American Dream, convinced us to risk our lives in the name of that dream, and then abandoned us. We cannot afford healthcare, healthy food, a home, or safe childcare. We fight and die in wars we don’t understand. We are punished for being too poor to afford homes while the wealthiest of us are convicted of crimes and suffer zero consequences. 

When my husband joined the military,  he did so because his family was poor. Yes, he was proud to serve the country. Yes, he was excited about the prospect of making something of himself. But at the root of his choice to serve was lack of options. He’d grown up in a dilapidated trailer with hard-working parents who did the best they could but just couldn’t seem to get a grasp on that dream people kept talking about. So, he joined the military for free college and healthcare and decent pay. And then that decision cost him his life. 

I still remember the Marine’s hands, dressed in white gloves, flat on either side of the flag like a doll’s as he handed it to me. The Marine’s movements were robotic–that of a man following a ritual that had been performed and perfected by many before him. My husband and I, like our parents before us, believed in and hoped for the American Dream. Instead, I was given a piece of red, white, and blue cloth and sent on my way. To say I’m disappointed is an understatement. 

Corey Comperatore is now being called a hero for trying to protect his family from the gunman. As heroic as his actions were, the hero narrative only distracts from the horrific reality we’ve found ourselves in. We are living in a country with loose gun laws and angry citizens who are struggling to get their basic needs met. We are scared, and our fear is turning us into monsters who would gladly let others suffer or even die if it means we save ourselves. Is this what it means to be human? Is this really living? If so, what is the point again?

I wish I believed my husband was some kind of hero who fought and died for a noble cause, but I don’t believe that’s true. My husband wasn’t a hero. He was just a kid trying to survive in an expensive, violent country that promised things it was never going to give and then sacrificed him to a senseless war. To those in power, my husband was expendable. Corey was expendable. Both of them were victims of a broken system that doesn’t prioritize the average citizen. A system that is failing them. A system that is failing all of us.