Former Congressman and USAF officer Adam Kinzinger in Newsweek, February 2026:
"In recent years, we’ve seen the National Guard and even the broader Armed Forces increasingly pulled into partisan theater. Politicians have treated deployments as political stunts. Military imagery has been used for messaging rather than mission. And Guard units have been redirected away from their communities for reasons that have little to do with public safety and everything to do with politics.
Politicizing the military is not just bad governance—it’s dangerous for the country. It erodes public trust, undermines civilian control, dishonors service members and weakens one of America’s most respected institutions.
In recent years, some public officials have floated or embraced the idea of using the National Guard or even the military to 'secure' polling places. Let’s be absolutely clear: in America, we do not send troops to guard ballot boxes. We do not deploy soldiers to watch voting lines. And we do not normalize stationing armed forces at polling places on Election Day.
That is what authoritarian regimes do—not constitutional democracies."
The Military and Veterans in Virginia
"The number of U.S. service members wounded in the war with Iran has surpassed 600," according to a July 27th report in Stars and Stripes. "The war began on Feb. 28 with joint U.S.-Israeli strikes that killed many of Iran’s top leaders and has since evolved into a fight over the Strait of Hormuz, a critical international waterway through which nearly a fifth of the globe’s oil usually passes."
"The move to shrink the V.A.’s health care division represents a striking turnaround after years of growth supported by members of both parties," according to a March 2026 article in The New York Times. The article also reported that in 2025 the number of nurses and doctors at the V.A. had its first decline in more than 20 years.
"U.S. Senators Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine (both D-VA) are pressing the Department of Veterans Affairs on their elimination of tens of thousands of positions nationwide, a decision that has hit the Commonwealth particularly hard. Virginia is home to more than 629,000 veterans, one of the largest veteran populations in the country, and the second-highest share of veterans as a percentage of population among all states. In just a matter of months from last fall through January of this year, more than 1,700 vacant positions have been taken off the books across Virginia, including the elimination of more than 700 vacancies at the Hampton VAMC, 300 at the Richmond VAMC, 200 at the Salem VAMC, and several hundred at community clinics and other facilities."
Office of U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), May 2026
Retired U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr., who served presidents Bush and Obama, said last year on ABC News, "When you remove so many senior leaders, especially without justifying and giving due cause, it creates huge uncertainty in the ranks, and it just isn't a good thing for the military at a very difficult time."
General Stanley A. McChrystal, U.S. Army (Ret.) on Firing Line with Margaret Hoover, 6/26/26:
"I think the military has played an important role all the way back to the days of George Washington, when he turned down the opportunity to be a dictator, although he was encouraged by many people, some in the military to do that, and he instead bowed to civilian power.
Throughout our history, the military has had a pretty good track record of being subservient to civilian leadership. Now there have been political military officers and there have been fits and starts, but generally, the military has been apolitical.
During my entire service, when you were with your peers, you never talked about politics. You didn't know what officer was a Democrat or Republican or whatever they might be, 'cause it wasn't considered appropriate to do that. And so we were an apolitical organization.
And that was sacred, because what you don't want is a military that is identified as supporting one part of a political faction or another, because then they become part of the equation. And the military actually should be separate and aside.
They should be there to protect the nation and then policymakers should make policy."
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