My wife and I drove up to Philadelphia for the Army-Navy Game.
Neither of us served in uniform and we’re not big college football fans. But if you live in Annapolis long enough, the fever for this historic rivalry gets catchy.
Go Navy, Beat Army!
Someone gave her tickets to the game at the old Veterans Stadium. So, we climbed into the highest sections to watch the pregame pageantry, post-touchdown pushups, goat and mule mascots, and celebration by cannon fire.
But it’s Donald Rumsfeld I most remember.
As we approach President Donald Trump’s visit to Baltimore for the game Saturday, there’s something to be learned from recent history.
It was 2006, and Rumsfeld was the secretary of defense, a key architect of the wars that followed the Sept. 11 attacks on America. For a while, he was a hero.
There was glowing coverage of his work ethic and intelligence. Men with the power to do foolish things at work copied his famous standing desk. Then, things changed.
Osama bin Laden, who launched 9/11 from Afghanistan, remained untouchable. The invasion of Iraq turned into years of insurgency. There were no weapons of mass destruction, and the casualties kept growing.
Righteous American fury after an attack with hijacked jetliners collided with the moral stain of prison torture at Abu Ghraib.
In November, voters sent a message to Republican President George W. Bush about his deeply unpopular wars. Democrats took the House and tied up the Senate.
After the election, Bush announced Rumsfeld was resigning. But he had a last hurrah on the field in Philadelphia, striding out for the coin toss flanked by admirals, generals and football captains.
Despite the anger toward a good war gone bad, the crowd gave Rumsfeld a hero’s welcome. They forgave the stench of failure.
It’s a long anecdote to explain this point.
When Trump attends Saturday’s Army-Navy game in Baltimore, there almost certainly will be no booing.
Despite leading the Navy into war crimes under current Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, despite abandoning Ukraine so his billionaire constituency can do deals with Russia, despite careening toward military adventurism in Venezuela, Trump will get a warm embrace.
“The message to the midshipmen is to leave the military out of politics,” said Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Mike Borgschulte, the superintendent of the Naval Academy.
After the last year at the academy — sexism, censorship, book bans and ideological purges — that feels harder than ever.
What if Trump doesn’t hear cheers when he steps to the 50-yard line, flags aflutter and salutes a’-snappin’? What if the crowd at this uniquely patriotic game booed the president?
If the 71,000 people in the stands were representative of America, more than half would be up for a show of dissent.
Of course, they aren’t. The crowd will be dominated by connections to service in uniform and Washington and football.
None of the Naval Academy alumni I spoke with wanted to contemplate hurling a political message at this moment of pride.
They want to enjoy the game and the reminder of what it means to be young and committed to a life in uniform. They want to watch Navy beat the crap out of Army, or, if you prefer, the other way around.
They have to ignore a lot to get there.
Hegseth, the FOX News talk show host elevated to leader of the world’s deadliest military force, is modeling the risks of treating it as a political plaything.
If, as has been reported, he gave an order to “kill them all” on Sept. 2 as Navy drones and jets approached a speedboat in the Caribbean piloted by alleged drug smugglers, he committed a crime.
U.S law prohibits “no quarter” attacks, and if the second bomb strike was intended to kill survivors of the initial attack, it was murder. Hegseth denies it.
Questions about the legality of the attacks from the start may have convinced Adm. Alvin Holsey to resign as head of the Southern Command.
And it’s why Adm. Frank Bradley at Special Operations looks increasingly like the patsy in this debacle. Bradley ordered the second strike. He told Congress there was no kill order, but there’s bipartisan pressure for more details.
Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, a retired Navy captain and astronaut, is under bogus investigation for reminding servicemen and women about their duty to disobey unlawful orders.
You have to think this is not the end of it.
Maybe that’s a message. Holsey is a ROTC product, Bradley a Naval Academy grad and Kelly, a Merchant Marine Academy alum. Which ones stand for accountability?
It would be great if we could leave politics out of the military.
It’s too late.
There will be protests outside the stadium. Be The Change Bmore and other groups plan to line the streets, calling the president a tyrant. They’re angry about immigration raids, corruption and the sum of his actions.
The Protect Democracy Project will put its “Not the Mission” protests on downtown electronic billboards and in digital ads. The campaign will focus on the use of the National Guard to support ICE raids as an abuse of power.
Trump never lets a slight pass. This unfriendly welcome could easily trigger the military and paramilitary response protesters fear.
Dissent from the stands would hit differently. There is a precedent.
Last month, fans at the Commanders-Lions game in Landover both jeered and cheered as the president read the oath to military recruits during a halftime Salute to Service ceremony.
The Army-Navy Game is not the NFL, and while it is exciting to have a classic game in Baltimore, it is about more than football.
Don’t expect anyone inside the stadium to boo the president Saturday.
But imagine if one person did. If one person and then another and another gave voice to what more than half of the country is thinking.
Would it spread? Would the message resonate for the midshipmen, the president and the nation?
The answer is boo.
Just boo.
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