By LTC Scott E. Rutter (USA, Retired), Warrior Land War Analyst
We often wonder when we are faced with a mortal threat, will we run to the danger to save others or will we run away and hide. What will be our instinct in that moment? We learned how Donald Trump would react if you were with him and faced a crisis. When the bullets flew, you can replay the step-by-step reaction. He placed his hand on his ear and yelled three times “Get down! Get down! Get down!” These screams happened at the moment that he was hit. Clearly, he was not telling himself out loud to get down. He was telling the people that came to his rally, his fellow Americans, to get down. His very first, instinctive, thought was the protection of the people around him, not his own personal safety. In the exact moment that he was hit, he did not run away. He delayed his removal several times and as we know with his fist bump, he again, thought first of his fellow Americans.
We can think of politicians as inhuman and representing a class of people that lie, exaggerate and twist any issue for their own benefit. This can be said of either political party. So, when a politician, and in this case a former President, is the target of an attempted assassination strangely in our emotional response the human side is revealed. We understand that he has a family, a wife, children and very personal involvements that we can each relate to. The sheer luck of not being killed, we test that in our mind when we think about the risks of our upcoming flight or the possibility of random accidents. The devastation of the family of the person killed at the rally. He got up and got dressed that morning expecting some fun and comradery at the rally and a nice dinner with his family. He is now dead. When we think of these events, our empathy transfers to this previously inhuman politician and we feel the reality of the total lack of control that we have over our destiny.
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We are also reminded that while we will all perish from this earth, we are the lucky ones in America. Some have said that we need to tone down the rhetoric. I am not sure that is the answer because it misses the point of where the rhetoric actually comes from. It’s like treating the symptom and not the actual sickness. What Donald Trump did when he was hit with a bullet aimed at his brain was to instinctively and immediately scream to his fellow American, “Get Down.” By putting their lives ahead of even his well-being, he acted with instant morality and what we really need is not to tone down the rhetoric, but to change it.
We can disagree vehemently and that is uniquely American, and we should never give that up. We are the greatest nation on the face of this earth because we can disagree with each other and not be put in a gulag or banished to a jail cell. For this, generations have hard fought and given their lives. But what they also knew was that this country is stronger and greater when we can disagree with morality.
We can look upon our fellow American for whom we have total disagreement and understand that they have a family, they have a husband or wife, they are our neighbor, and they live in our community. We can understand that we can disagree while still caring for one another as fellow human beings. If we can take anything from this horrible event, let it be that in our differences we grow stronger. That a moral person is not someone that always does the right thing or tells the truth all the time, there are no people like that. A moral person is one that cares for his fellow human, his fellow American. Donald Trump showed us how to be moral in the seconds after he was shot. So, let us continue to disagree and debate strongly and with vigor, but let us be moral in our attack. This is the greatness of America today and forever.
Silver Star Recipient Lt. Col. Scott Rutter commanded the 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry, 3ID (M) destroying Republican Guard Forces as Baghdad International Airport during the combat phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom I (2003).Scott is an Entrepreneur and Founder and President of the Valor Network, a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business that is one of the largest Telemedicine/Teleradiology providers to medical facilities in the Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Homeland Security.
